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Coming up with Story Ideas

I once had a class where an author came and spoke about the differences between writers, and everyone else. What are these differences? Writers take their weird thoughts and expand on them. Non-writers will just shrug them off, and move on. With that being said, let’s talk about coming up with story ideas.

Photo by **Anni Roenkae** from **Pexels**

How?

How does a person come up with an idea for a story? Lots of ways. I will go over a few that I’ve used below.

Writing Prompts

One of the easiest ways to come up with an idea is to look at a prompt. A writing prompt is a couple of sentences. They will usually detail a situation, and maybe a character. Then they will ask the writer to take the situation/character from there. You can sign up to get writing prompts sent to your email, or they can be found through social media.

Pictures

Grab a picture that you really love. It could be anything, it could be a photograph, it could be a painting, a drawing, maybe even a sculpture. Make a story that revolves around the picture. Imagine what the world of the picture is like, if it’s a surreal, imagine a whole where that kind of landscape can exist. If it’s a photograph, if there is a person in it, what are they like (if it’s a photo of someone you know, then focus on another aspect of the picture).

If it’s a beautiful landscape, what can you imagine happening there? What if that beautiful landscape was previously the site of a large battle, what if that landscape was the home of a fantastic creature, or a horrible murder, or what if the children gathered there on the night their parents died, or their house burned, or maybe the mountain is the one that the woman summited after she’d gone through so much, and she was finally gaining her own power back.

Folk/fairy Tales

Re-told fairy tales have been something that people are interested in reading for a long time now. Because they are well-known, they may be harder to get published. However, that shouldn’t stop anyone from taking their favorite folk and fairy tales and then bringing them into the 21st Century and making them their own. You can even ditch the magical aspects, or maybe remain more faithful to the Grim’s version, or alternatively, you can take multiple tales and weave them together. Maybe Beauty is a badass carpenter, and instead of being pressured to marry the town jerk, she gets called to a mansion to make some kind of chair or railing or something, and on the way there she meets up with red riding hood or Hansel and Gretel.

Also, because the fairy tales have been done so many times and are well-known, it may be worth it to look into legends from different areas, or ones that aren’t that well-known in your area. Or you can use it as a framework for the story, without making it apparent that it came from a folk or fairy tale.

Pay Attention

This last idea is simply about paying attention to the world around you when you are out and about. When you are walking down the street, and you see someone that you find to be completely interesting, put them in a work, or use them as a jumping off point for a story. Or when you have weird occurrences happen to you, and you think “what if,” either write those down, or just try to remember them when it’s time to write.

So when coming up with story ideas, one size doesn’t fit all. But, there are enough ways to come up with a story that everyone should be able to find something to work for them.

Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you want to hear more about how to come up with ideas, or maybe a writing prompt? Let me know what you are looking for.

How to Outline and why?

When looking up outlining a novel, searching it; there are so many options. There are options that have chapter-by-chapter templates, options that go into detail about structures. Because there are so many options out there, I will simply talk about my experience and share my personal thoughts on how to outline, and why.

Beginning: how to outline and why?

I would describe my writing style as more of a “pantser” instead of a “plotter.” By pantser I mean, I’m one of those “by the seat of my pants” kind of writers, who writes and discovers my plot as I go. I’m not, what you would call, a gal with a plan.

When I start writing, it’s with a kind of vague idea. Like, what if there was a society who eschewed the idea of magical people, unless they were taught properly. If their magic just appeared, they were shunned and left to die. Which is the idea I started my first what you would call “trunk novel” with. You know, that one that you finish, and then you realize that it’s a mess, and you may not ever be able to fix it, and so it sits. And it does still, finished, have re-written, just sitting. I hope someday to have the skills to fix it.

So, after the vague idea, I usually come up with a couple characters, and a conflict, or maybe conflict and then characters. Usually I have two characters that are important, and then an antagonist. Then, I get going.

What I learned from my first experience, is that some kind of outline, even if I deviate from it immediately, is paramount to writing success. We all learned how to write outlines in school at some point, some teacher in middle school taught everyone how to outline notes properly.

Outline

You can start there, if that’s where you are comfortable. Remember how the story needs to have: inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. You will use each of these parts of the plot to build your outline.

Example

Inciting Incident: girl finds out she has powers
Rising Action: Tries and fails to use powers, fails to do x, y, z things. Grows in power, gets advice, makes friends, has maybe a romantic moment??? The antagonist is disguised as a friend, gives bad advice or plants an idea that the readers can see will hurt the girl, but the girl’s information at the time leads her to do the thing that hurts her. Antagonist is revealed to girl and group. Antagonist is lost, they run away.
Climax: The girl and the antagonist get into a final showdown. The girl wins, and the antagonist is defeated, or maybe realizes they were wrong.
Falling Action: Romantic moment again, girl gets boy.
Resolution: All subplots are tied up, any friend relationships that need to be resolved are sewn up, maybe something is hinted that that will need to be resolved in a second book.

That could be an outline before you begin writing. I suggest a simple outline before beginning because it will give you something to write toward. You can just mentally remind yourself that during the first chapter or two you need to show your character and where they live, but that you need to be building toward the moment where something that happens that changes the life of your main character.

Conclusion

I don’t suggest going into a lot of detail before beginning, simply because in my experience, things change as you write. If you box yourself into a detailed chapter-by-chapter blow-by-blow of the action, then when you get a brilliant idea, it’s harder to follow it.

So, to sum up, in my experience an outline is a good idea. But, not a detailed one. However, it depends on the kind of writer you are. Thank you for reading about how to outline, and why?

What Books to Read as a Writer

Last time we talked about books, we talked about how to read like a writer. Today, I want to talk about what books to read, as a writer.

First off, you need to know what kind of writer you are. Are you a literary writer, a genre writer, do you write middle grade, or young adult? If you aren’t sure yet, then the answer is to read as much good writing as you can. If you know, then see below.

Genre

An author who is looking to get traditionally published in any genre, will need to have comp (comparable) titles for their work. These titles need to have been published recently (in the last two or so years), and exhibit something that is similar to your own work.

It could be that a story about a girl who learns about herself, in a young adult work, or maybe the tone and narrative voice are really similar to your own, even if the plot and characters are different. You need two of these when you are at the query stage.

With this in mind, as a genre author, you will need to read books within your genre. You need to read enough genre books that you have a good idea what the regular tropes and clichés are that regularly show up. In short, what do writers of the genre expect?

Sometimes, you will be told to stay away from your own genre while you are writing it. I think this really depends on the author. If you find that your work is becoming derivative as you are writing, simply because you are reading things that are similar to what you are writing; then see my next suggestion.

Literary/Classics

Any writer worth their salt should be able to discuss many classic novels. You don’t have to have read everything, but you should be well-versed in the classics (or canon) and you should understand the forerunners of your own genre and why those books are considered the first. For a horror author, you will want to read Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.P Lovecraft, and Edgar Allen Poe, among others. A mystery writer will need to read Agatha Christy, and Arthur Conan Doyle, among others.

You can always look up a list of classic authors, and start reading. You can find authors that you like their writing style and read those.

If you are a literary author, you will want to look to your contemporary peers and read their work. There are lists of award winners in the literary world, and that would be where you would want to start looking for books that will work for you. This also works for genre authors. All genres have their own awards that celebrate great writers. These lists are easy to find:

Here is a Wikipedia page with that shows all the awards. The list is lengthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_awards

The answer to what to read, is read a lot, read good writers and find award-winning writing. But, if you are looking for those tricky comps, look in your genre!

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you want more of this kind of stuff, or something different.

Plotting: The Three-Act-Structure

Writing starts in your mind. In everyone’s mind, what happens is a strange question takes shape. A what if? Question, maybe. Or possibly just a thought about a character. The only difference between writers and regular people, is those strange little questions, or characters that flit through everyone’s minds–in the mind of a writer, those thoughts take root, they end up sprouting until we have to write them down–that’s where plotting: the-three-act-structure may come into play.

Even if you are a pantser (a discovery writer), you will need to keep some form of plot in mind as you spin your yarn. A plotter will have all of this figured out before they start writing, possibly. With the idea that plot is important no matter what kind of writer you are, we will go over the Three-Act-Structure below. You will note the similarities to freytag’s pyramid, which has been discussed previously.

Plotting: The Three-Act-Structure

Act One: Setup

The first act contains exposition (again, I’m going to go back to what I call “a day in the life of…”) When we meet the protagonist and most of the other characters, and we learn about the world they live in. This will also contain the inciting incident. The inciting incident is the thing that happens that starts the plot moving along, an example of this is: in The Stand when the military employee chooses to escape via the malfunctioning gate. The rest of the first act needs to introduce the question that the rest of the work will answer.

Second Act: Rising Action

The second act is where the protagonist tries and fails to answer the question raised in the first act. There needs to conflict and confrontation. There should also be character development, the protagonist, in their struggle to answer the question that arose in the first act, should grow as a person. We, as readers or audience members, should be rooting for them to win at the end of the day. An example: in The Hunger Games, we see Katniss go through all kinds of horrible things during the second act, she almost dies of dehydration, then she gets hit with a fireball, and she gets stung by tracker-jackers. All of this happens before the climax of the story.

The Third Act: Resolution/Climax

The third act is when the question is resolved. The climax should happen during the third act, it should be the most dramatic part of the story, and it should resolve the question posed in the first act. After which the story should be resolved quickly, and the ending should tie up any loose ends or subplots, without too much exposition. An example: at the end of The Shining, we get a brief moment with Danny, his mom, and Mr. Halloran; leaving the readers happy that they all survived the ordeal, all that the readers need.

That is a brief overview of plotting: the three-act-structure. There are many resources for looking at plots, because it is such an important part of the writing process. Just something to keep in mind while wandering through your story, think to yourself if it has the elements it needs to pull your readers along.

Thank you for reading!

Revising and Editing

Finishing anything is kind of a big deal. So, when you finish your novel, short story, poem, blog post; anything. The first order of the moment is a (short or long, depending on the piece of writing) celebration. Then, it’s time to get down to brass tacks with revising and editing.

Revising and Editing Photo by Marina Leonova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-textile-in-close-up-photography-7717467/ — Photo by Marina Leonova

I will focus on novel editing and revising, because it’s the biggest, hardest thing to do. However, these can apply to other things. Most of the ideas here can be easily applied to any other thing. I will make a note about revision poems: they’re different. The things that matter for poetry don’t for other types of writing. So some advice may not be useful for budding poets.

Revising and Editing: Editing

Let’s start by talking about editing. There are several kinds of editing that can/should be done with a piece. The types of edits are: developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and then proofreading.

Developmental Editing

This is the first edit, this is the meat and potato edit where you go through the entire piece and look at it with a critical eye. You will want to look at each part of the book and make sure that everything makes sense as you want it to. You can do this one of two ways, you can either read through the entire piece (hopefully with fresh eyes, meaning that you have put it down for a while, at least 2 weeks) and highlight each area in turn that you find you need to work on. Or, the other option is that you can read your piece several times, each time looking at each part in turn. The parts are:

Parts of a Story

Plot: check that the story you want to tell is making it on the page. Does the plot flow from points A to Z? Can you tell why the characters are acting the way that they are? Do you question anything, any weirdness–make a mark, come back to it later.
Structure: How you tell the story. Maybe it’s chronological, maybe it’s reverse chronological, maybe it skips through time and then doubles back. However, it does it make sure that it does it the way it’s supposed to. Wherever it gets confusing, make a mark.
Characterization: Do the characters act “within character” the whole time? If there are places where you have characters acting differently than they should or making choices that are strange, make a mark.
Pacing: How quickly/slowly does the action take place? Are there places where you are bored, places where everything is moving so quickly that it’s hard to keep track? Make a mark.
Viewpoint: The POV character should not be ambiguous. If you have a work where you have multiple point-of-view characters, it will need to be apparent whose point of the story is from within a sentence or two. If this is confusing, mark it.
Narrative Style: This ties into viewpoint, is the story told in first, second or third person? If it is in First, it shouldn’t switch. If the narrative style is unclear, mark it.
Tense: Is it in past or present-tense. If it is unclear, or switches tenses; mark it.

Mark it?

What do I mean by mark it, and why am I saying “mark it” instead of change it? The very first step in the editing process is to let the work rest. If possible, of course. When you come back to read the work with fresh eyes, then, instead of changing it right away, you will want to make marks on it. These marks could be highlights, they could be changing the color of the text itself. My suggestion would be to mark each item with a different color.

Line Editing

As the name implies, line editing looks more closely at sentences. This type of editing should be done after the developmental edits are already completed. Essentially, the idea is to start big. Start with those ‘big picture’ changes before moving to the smaller, more fiddly changes.

Line edits will look at style, voice and flow. They will look at poor word choice, character-voice issues, inauthentic writing. Other things to look for are poor metaphor choices, overwritten prose, repetition, and this is also where telling v. showing will come in. So, don’t worry about it until you get all the way to the line edit phase of writing.

Editing and Revising Photo by Charlotte May: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-faceless-black-person-highlighting-words-in-text-5965705/ — Photo by Charlotte May

Copy editing

This is where you look at the formatting. The copy editing phase is where you would check the chapter sequencing, the spelling of proper nouns, all the grammar and syntax sentence level stuff, and the proper formatting of the document itself.

Sometimes the line edit and the copy edit are performed at the same time.

Proofreading

This is the last pass edit before a document is deemed “good enough.” This is where you look for any weird formatting issues that may have come up, along with searching for sentence consistency and any grammar errors that may have been missed. You pull up the work and make sure that it looks as good as it possibly can before either being sent off to agents or published.

Revising

Revision is the act of making the changes. So, while editing, you will make suggestions. Then, when you start revising, you actually make the changes. Revising goes hand in hand with editing, which is why they are typically mentioned together, although revising should be considered the act of the thing.

When you begin the process, it is perfectly okay to move as slowly or as quickly as you would like. There are people who will write a couple of chapters and then start to revise right away. Personally, I like to write to the end, without revision, and then go from there.

Revision may be its own post one day.

Let me know if you need any more information on revising and editing, or if you would like different information. Thanks for reading!

Daily Writing Habit: Journaling

The other day, I was reading a blog about lies we tell ourselves as writers. One of the lies is that we have nothing to say. The author of the blog called BS on that and said that if you’ve eaten breakfast, you have something to say. I want to take that idea further with the wonderful world of journaling. So, let’s expand our daily writing habit. I’ve talked about how to build habits before, but today, I want to talk about subject matter.

Daily writing habit: journaling Photo by Vinícius Vieira ft: https://www.pexels.com/photo/purple-and-pink-light-digital-wallpaper-4424355/ — Photo by Vinícius Vieira ft

Journaling: Daily Writing Habit

The key to building a habit of writing every day is finding something that works for you. What if the problem isn’t the time or the energy or even the want to write, what if the problem is the concern that you don’t have anything to say? That’s where writing a journal is a great way to get started. All you need is to be among the living.

Tips

Not Fancy

Don’t make it fancy. If one of your issues is that you need to have a particular space to write in, then try and demystify the art of writing. Make your journal entries on the bus, at the zoo, while watching the latest episode of your favorite show. Write them on plain notebook paper, or using an app on your phone, or on a stained napkin. You can start journal entries any and everywhere until the habit is ingrained.

Only for you

Understand that it’s just for you. Journal entries are different than other kinds of writing because they are personal. They are meant to be a kind of free therapy. I mean, at least that’s what I think of them as. Every time I feel like I need to just talk to someone, and I don’t have anyone around that can just be a listening ear, I turn to my journal. My journal has seen some shit, if you will pardon my french, and it never judges me.

No time requirements

You are not required to do it at a certain time. You can stick to one time of day, or several, or change it up. Just like building the habit. This goes back to not being fancy. You don’t need to make sure your entry happens just as the sun is setting over Lake Erie as you drink your first sip of wine for the evening.

It is what you make it

It can contain anything. When I was a teen, I would journal as if someone were going to pick it up and read it, later. As an adult, I know it’s only for myself. Maybe you want to write your journal in Shakespearean sonnets, or haiku. Or you feel like writing your novel in your journal. You can research something and write down your findings in there. Write exactly what you think of every single person in your life, they’ll never see it. You could solve decades-old murders. You can do anything you like. It’s your journal.

At the end of the day, journaling is a great way to get into the habit of writing because they don’t have to be about anything, they don’t have to lead anywhere, it’s really only about getting into the daily writing habit. You may find that you enjoy the benefits of journaling because it has a tendency to be therapeutic and allows you to get at the heart of what you are feeling and why.

The Habit of Writing

Writers write, it’s what they do. But, when you are someone who maybe isn’t a writer YET, but you have the want/nay the need to become such a person, how do you begin? How do you form the habit of writing?

The Habit of Writing, photo by Andre Moura — Photo by Andre Moura:

It’s the easiest/hardest thing. You develop the habit. Day after day, week after week, it’s important to come back to the page and write. In his memoir/writing tips book–On Writing–Stephen King talks about how, when a person decides to be a writer, they need to write instead of having other hobbies. He suggests writing instead of watching T.V., listening to audiobooks while driving, and suggests that the things a person gives up aren’t all that important anyway.

I’m not going to say that you have to give up T.V. in order to be a writer, but I am going to say that writing needs to be important. There are some tips that can be found in any habit-forming self-help book about different ways that you can find time to write even when it feels/seems/is impossible.

Tips for forming the habit of writing

Habit Bundling

This one is called habit bundling, it’s where you take something that you want to do and tack on the thing that you are trying to form the habit of, as well. Then, you only do your wanted thing while doing the thing you are attempting to form as a habit. With the habit of writing, this means maybe you could decide to only listen to your favorite bands while you are writing, or you could “watch” your favorite T.V. show or movies when you are writing. Another option could even be that you eat a favorite food or snack when you are pounding at the keyboard.

Five-minutes

Five-minutes, in this habit-forming technique, you decide to do your habit for five minutes every day for two weeks. So, in this case, you will write every day for two weeks for five minutes. Then, you can decide to up the amount of time, or keep going at the same time, or maybe something different.

The habit of writing, photo by Gratisography — Photo by Gratisography

Getting Ready

Getting ready, this is where you take small steps to prepare to do the thing. In the case of writing, you would prepare by getting your computer or typewriter, or pen and paper out before it’s time to write, you would brew your coffee or open your beer. Because you have already prepped for the writing session, you will be more likely to go through with it.

Decide on a Time

Decide on a time, there are studies that say that the best time for–well, pretty much anything–is in the morning. But, unfortunately, life doesn’t allow us to do everything at once. We need to pick a time to write that fits into our schedules, most of us. Maybe that time is the same every day, or maybe it changes, but what’s important is to intentionally pick a time that will for you.

Tell Someone

Tell someone about your commitment. I’m not the kind of person who likes to share my writing ambitions with people, so I don’t do this one. However, they say that if you share your goal with someone, you are more likely to go through with it. So, if you have a bestie who is likely to help you stay on top of your writing goals. Tell them.

When forming the habit of writing, it’s best to try on different methods. Stick with one option for a couple of weeks, then if the habit is coming along, keep at it. But if it feels awkward or forced, if the practice isn’t getting easier after doing it for two weeks straight, then switch to a different method. The important takeaways are that writing needs to be a priority, you can’t just continue to put it on the bottom of the to-do list and expect that it will eventually start to happen on its own, and that forming a habit is a process in and of itself, and that you have to keep it up in order for the habit to stick.

How to Read like a Writer

As a starting out writer, an aspiring writer, I was constantly told to read. It wasn’t a hard thing for me, and it isn’t to this day. I’ve always been a reader, as are most people who are or want to be writers. The hard part, for most writers’ comes with the other half of well-meant, often repeated advice. Read like a writer. What exactly does that mean? Let’s explore.

Reading like a writer purple picture — Photo by Nick Collins

Before you can read like a writer, you need to start thinking of yourself as a writer. It’s a bit more complicated than that. You can’t just say that you’re a writer now, so anytime you are reading, you are reading like a writer. Some tips to mastering this kind of reading are listed below:

Tips for reading like a writer

When reading like a writer, you will want to focus on an element in the text that you want to figure out or learn how to write well. Maybe you’ve been struggling with structure. You can go to a book that does it well. Then read with that thing in mind. How did they structure their story? What made the structure special in that book? You can take tips on how to structure yours from reading with focus. For example: The Way of Kings begins with a fight scene, and then jumps in time. Every other book in that series has looked at the same night through a different character’s eyes.

Common things to focus on while reading are:

Plot
Point of View
Narration
Atmosphere
Tone
Setting
Characterization
Sentence Structure
Chronography

What is important is that, while reading, you read closely. Reading closely means paying attention to sentence length, word choice, paragraph length. It’s important to take notes. You are not just reading the words and letting them play inside your head, you are not just enjoying the movie that your imagination is lighting up for you. You are dissecting the work, you are learning its secrets.

Another tip is to write out sentences you love. Those amazing pieces of prose from the authors you can’t get enough of, go ahead and copy them down as if you are in grade school again. This will help you to understand their word choices, their sentence structures, and it will give you a better understanding of why the work is so good.

In summary, you will want to pick an element of the text to focus on, then you will want to read closely and take notes so that you can pick apart the text. If there is a particular passage that you love, go ahead and copy it down. Once you have mastered the art of reading like a writer, you will find that your own writing will improve.

Thank you for reading! Are there any other tips for reading like a writer that I’ve forgotten?