A.J. Maguire

Tag: Writing

  • Editing Outlines Take II – Character Depth

    Alright! So last time I talked about the notion of editing an Outline before you begin writing your book. This was a new concept that I learned via the James Patterson Master Class, which I highly recommend to any authors out there who haven’t given it a shot yet. Even if you don’t write suspense, the man’s got some serious skills that you can adapt to your own writing.

    Such as editing an Outline before you begin writing.

    It really is helpful, I swear. And no, my Muse hasn’t exhausted itself on this story-line because I’ve written this detailed Outline. I thought it would, but it hasn’t.

    If anything, my Muse is more jived to be working than ever because editing the outline is allowing me to see the story from all corners, adding depth and tension and character development.

    I’ve combined chapters or cut chapters that had no real use, which I know is going to save me editing time once the rough draft is complete. I’ve explored the peripheral characters enough that I know who they are and what they want and HOW they impact both the story.

    Let me give an example.

    In Tapped I had to edit and edit and edit the character of Kenzie Torda. She kept falling flat on the page because, beyond knowing that I needed her there to cause plotty problems and that she liked music, I hadn’t explored who she was. One of my wonderful Beta readers pointed her out to me (Thank you, LJ Cohen!) and I really struggled with her.

    It made the editing process a bear.

    In fact, I think I had to take a week just to figure her out, and then it took another week fixing everything to give her more depth.

    In Dead Weight – the sequel to Tapped and the book I’m currently experimenting with Outlines on – I have a ship full of people.

    People.

    Not extras.

    Not minor characters there to drive my main characters insane, but real people with real motivations that make sense.

    Like Doctor Morrison Conroy, a single father and brilliant physicist who finds himself confronted by a daughter he barely knows anymore. But rather than focus on his daughter, he points his rage toward the others in the book because that is somehow easier than accepting he might have failed her.

    A lot of tension and strife comes from having this man on board, but more than that … he’s a solid personality and he makes sense. And the trouble he causes (or doesn’t cause) in the book makes sense too.

    But I wouldn’t have discovered this about him until 5 edits later (and possibly a year or two into the work) if I hadn’t done this Outline process first.

    Seriously.

    I was a “pantser” once. And then I was a “start the book as a pantser, end the book as an Outliner” … but I think I’ve been won over by this method.

  • Editing Outlines

    Alright, so I was intrigued by the idea of editing an outline before you’ve gone in and started your story. Normally I get one outline done and then I have to edit it midway through the book to compensate for all the extra things I’ve learned about the characters and little subplots that have cropped up during the drafting process.

    So!

    Imagine my delight when, on my third draft of Dead Weight’s outline, my Muse woke up and fixed something I hadn’t even noticed was broken. It changes 80% of the book, adds tension, drives home the concept of what a tapped soldier is, and reminds everyone (including me) just how far the Consulate has gone in its hunt for power.

    And the best part?

    I’m not cringing about having to go back and re-write a ton of words. Because they haven’t been written yet. 

    On top of that, my excitement for actually getting to the writing part of this book has increased exponentially. And I still have 3 weeks left of Outline edits to go.

    Because I want to cash in on the inspiration I’ve got going on right now, I’m going to go ahead and start writing little snippets here and there. The next few passes at the Outline are going to focus on character reactions/motivations. I’ve got a solid plot foundation under me now and I just need to tweak who recognizes what and things.

    In the meantime, I’m using Camp NaNoWriMo to get caught up on some other works. Residual Haunting, for example, is in a tragic state of nearly-complete. And in other announcements, I managed to get Persona prepped and ready for print-launch.

    As with all my books, I do try the traditional market first. There were a couple of nibbles from agents and the like with Persona and, while I intend to send out another volley of queries within the month, I also wish to make sure I get at least one book out a year.

    So unless Persona gets picked up in the interim, we can expect a launch date sometime in December. (Imagine me throwing all sorts of confetti and jumping up and down in excitement. This poor book has been in the works for a couple decades now. It’s time it sees the light of day.)

    To everyone else who’s working hard at their Camp NaNoWriMo stuff … Good work! Keep going! Get words on the page! You’re six days in and all the world is at your fingertips.

     

  • Writing and Business and the In-Between

    As of this evening my novelette “Torven” has a completed rough draft. Given its very small length (16006 words) I have been toying around with the idea of giving it away for free or really, really cheap (after it’s gone through a rigorous editing) which has led me to the normal marketing spiel/debate.

    I’ve been here before. Often.

    In fact, I’d like to say I’ve dipped my toes into murky depths of marketing since Sedition was first published five years ago. (Five years? Really? Sheesh.)

    I have not, however, really committed to a marketing plan. Up until this point my focus was on my craft, wanting to just write the next story and grow as an author, and while none of those goals have changed (and never will, because that’s the whole point of taking ownership of your craft) … I can say that I am going to step intrepidly out into the realm of marketing.

    I started, quite comically, with a giveaway of Tapped today on Amazon. The giveaway lasted all of an hour, which … really showed me how bad I am at math. (5 books + every 5th entrant wins = about an hour’s worth of giveaway time. Just in case anyone else needs this information.)

    But I learned a great deal about what I want to do in the future. I’ve set up a pretty little timetable to follow for marketing – when I want to do what promotions and at what sites – and even color-coded it … because I’m a geek like that.

    I am also in the process of revamping my website … with help because I’m really not great at it.

    As to writing itself …

    With “Torven” done I can go back to Dead Weight, the sequel to Tapped. I’ll be revamping the outline based on the things I learned in James Patterson’s Master Class (still an awesome thing and if you write, you should check it out.)

    Basically, I’ll be going over the outline once a week through the month of April. Start to finish. Tightening the plot. Adding elements of the suspense genre into my science fiction … basically implementing everything Mr. Patterson set out to teach me in 22 lessons.

    I’m excited.

    It’ll be fun.

    And I’ll record all the mayhem here because I can … and maybe it’ll help someone else down the road.

     

  • The Side Project

    My cork board hasn’t changed since January. According to my calendar I should be on Chapter 9, not Chapter 4, of Dead Weight. That big leap I had at the beginning of the year is now completely gone.

    But you know what?

    I really don’t care.

    Because I’ve been working. Granted, I haven’t been working on what I said I’d be working on at this point, but it’s still words on the page.

    In fact, it’s over 10,000 words of that lovely fairy tale story I began for my son. He’s enjoying it still, by the way, and it is nearly complete. I should have the full novella by the end of this month. At which point I’ll set it aside for a couple of weeks before doing a round or two of edits and then I intend to put it out for free/super cheap/whatever I can get Createspace to do there.

    But I haven’t just been writing on this thing. I also opted to take James Patterson’s Master Class on writing and slowly made it through the 22 lessons there.

    Why no, I’ve never written a suspense novel before, but that doesn’t mean that things within the suspense genre can’t be planted into the genres that I prefer writing. In particular, I took away from this class a very distinct outlook on Outlines that I will, at the beginning of April, implement with Dead Weight.

    Since I’m only on Chapter 4 there I don’t feel like I’ll be shooting myself in the foot starting over with the Outline and doing it the “Patterson” way.

    For those who have been toying with the idea of taking a Master Class like this one, I’m going to go ahead and give the “two thumbs up” and encourage you to do so. There are some things you’ve heard that you’ll hear again, but in the end it’s got some nuggets in there that you can certainly use.

    In the meantime, I’ll be posting some of the Fairy Tale on the website and things because … well … it’s fun. And you can’t beat free.

  • Video Games vs Reading

    Among the many hats that I wear, I am the proud parent of an extremely creative little boy. Some time ago I got him a Wii for Christmas, but the motor wore out so he was game-less for quite a while – unless he went to his friend’s house.

    After observing my son in both states – gaming vs. not-gaming – I have come to accept this as part of the culture we live in now. For his birthday he was given a handheld game system so that he could play while waiting for me to get done with certain necessities (like work).

    And then his father got him a PS3 and, to be honest, my son uses it more for Netflix than anything else. I would balk at this but he chooses British shows far more often than I expected (thank you Doctor Who and the like) so I feel like I’m not having to regulate everything he’s doing.

    However … Netflix is not a good book. And games are not good books.

    Plainly – visual media is not a good book that really allows you to grow by digging into to the mindset of another person and walking in their shoes for a while. It’s a proven fact that people who read are far more empathetic to the world around them than people who don’t.

    Reading fiction is, to be frank, not just about learning character tropes and getting a larger vocabulary. You’ll get those things, of course, but the larger and more profound effect reading has on us is a deep connection to humanity.

    Yes, the characters are made up.

    But the reactions – if they’ve been done right – are utterly true. Sometimes the settings are fake, but the human nature on the page is not. And reading about them helps us to understand both ourselves and the world around us.

    How then do we find the balancing point between allowing our kids to enjoy the visual media prominent in our culture and the clearly necessary act of reading?

    My son recently grumped about having to shut the game off and sit for his designated reading time and, as any writer-parent should be, I was quite alarmed. But I couldn’t take away his game system and make reading a punishment, that would be counter-productive.

    My solution was a trifle unorthodox, I’m sure. And anyone who is a parent but not also a writer would find it difficult to do, but I’ll share it anyway.

    I began to write a classic fairy-tale story for my son. And I told him about it.

    This, of course, has meant quite a lot of work on my part because it means I need to have written every single day. Because every day, at the end of his reading hour (or sometimes at the beginning) we read the progress of the story together.

    Sometimes he reads it from the beginning, out loud, to me. Other times he just wants me to read it (I apparently make a good wolf-voice.) And at the end he is always speculating about what he thinks is going to happen in this tale. He engages and asks questions about the main character and is, as far as I can tell, deeply interested.

    When it’s finished I’ll likely publish it as a stand-alone novella, though I admit that is mostly so that he can hold it in his hands as an actual book instead of a spiral notepad.

    Will this make a life-long reader out of my son?

    No. Not just one book. It can never be just one book that does it. But it’s a start.

  • The Working Blurb

    I think I’ve read so many books on how to write books that it’s actually a little sad now. On the one hand, I’ve picked up some invaluable advice from people far more experienced than me, and on the other hand …

    I think I could have stopped at the 7th book. Most of them tell you the same things but in different ways.

    Things like …

    “Choose a designating writing time and make it a habit.” (I do try to do this. 6-7:30AM is my time now, but schedules change so it’s likely to go back to 8-10:30PM again soon.)

    “Read. Read. Read some more.” (Psh! You can’t stop me from reading.)

    “Outline.” And  … “Don’t Outline.” And … “Do whatever, just get words on the page.” (That last one is my motto.)

    Or … and I actually have done this  …

    “Take your favorite novel by your favorite author (not you) and hand-write the first three chapters.”

    Actually, I think they said to go ahead and hand-write the whole book, but I never went past the first three chapters. The point of the exercise was to pay attention to style and voice and, as crazy as it sounds, it actually works.

    But among my favorite tools when first starting a new project is writing the “working blurb.” It’s also been called the “nugget” for those familiar with the lingo. Normally it’s only 50-100 words but I let it push out to 150 sometimes.

    Basically, this “working blurb” goes in place of my title page during the first draft. I have copies of it on 3×5 cards in my wallet and attached to the notebook where all the hand-written material is. It is what keeps me excited about the novel and helps remind me what I’m hoping to accomplish.

    And in the spirit of the new project I’m going to share it today. To all fellow authors out there who may not have attempted writing a “nugget” or a “working blurb” before, I highly suggest you try it. It’s just 100-150 words that make you want to write the book.

    Dead Weight – Working Blurb

    Reeling after their narrow escape from Europa the crew of the hauler class ship Zephyr seek refuge in Sect Space, as far removed from the Consulate as they can get. With their covers blown and their former Captain comatose, Jorry and Seach find themselves answering a call for help from an old friend. The call takes them to Saturn, deep inside Consulate space, and to make matters worse, Jorry is still haunted by the man she killed on Europa. 

    As Jorry slowly loses her mind, Seach must find a way to keep them all out of Consulate hands. When the ship is damaged, they are forced to dock with an abandoned station hidden in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. But they aren’t the only one’s wandering the corridors of this dead station and whatever is lurking there isn’t pleased by their trespass. 

     

     

  • Year’s End

    Well, after possibly the worst Christmas present ever – which was a 24 hour flu bug that gave me an absolutely miserable day – I’m finally getting around to my end-of-year post.

    A friend of mine (L.J. Cohen, author of several YA novels that everyone should be reading) introduced me to the idea of posting writing goals and the like several years back and I’ve come to enjoy this little tradition.

    So!

    I wasn’t able to get to everything I wanted to do in 2015 writing-wise. I blame this on the re-write of Persona, which took several months more than anticipated. It is, however, finished and I have been shopping it around (another of my 2015 goals).

    Tapped was released in January 2015 as my first ever self-published novel. I imagine I could do more marketing-wise for it but I think I’m going to stick to just writing the next book.

    What’s next for 2016?

    1)  Dead Weight – the sequel to Tapped is slated for work to begin starting January 1st. I’m terribly excited for this one and have been aching to get started.

    2) Primal – This is a new-adult-paranormal-romance novel that I’ve been kicking around for years. I’ll begin work on it sometime in June, after I’ve completed the draft for Dead Weight.

    3) Residual Haunting – Will be completed in 2016. ‘Nuff said.

    4) Usurper – Is currently being edited. It may drag into the first two weeks of 2016, but not much further than that.

    5) Persona – Is going to go onto Kindle Scout. We’ll see how that goes. And I’ll throw confetti and wave people toward it because … apparently that’s what I’m supposed to do?

    I dunno, I’ve never done it before. We’ll have to see.

    Beyond the writing …

    I hope to enjoy many, many hours with my son, doing odd-ball things and having a blast.

    That’s it … that’s my 2016. I hope everyone else had a couple of great holidays and that their new year is spectacular!

  • Flashbacks, Memories, and the Tricks of Telling a Series

    I’ve written several “sequels” at this point. Saboteur comes after Sedition and Dead Magic is after Witch-Born and, starting next month, Dead Weight will be the sequel to Tapped.

    Now, there are some tricks I’ve learned to telling a series and since I just had to implement a new one I figured it was time to start sharing. Because I also read books that come in a series, like the Glamourist series by Mary Robinnette Kowal or the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, I can also see how other authors have gone about this and have sometimes used their methods.

    The trick of a series is understanding that the previous book you’ve written – if, of course, you’re dealing with the same characters – is all backstory now. Readers who pick up the third book in your series may eventually go back to read the first, but they’re not aware of what happened to your characters back then.

    Conversely, Readers who have been with you from the beginning know all about what’s happened and can quickly become bored if you’re putting too much of that first book into the second.

    How then are we to keep things fresh while also giving important information from the first book?

    Well, first let me say that this is ALL ABOUT CRAFT.

    This is the moment when an author can truly shine, so don’t just hurry through this. Sit down, take a deep breath, and focus on your craft.

    Here are some tricks that I’ve learned so far.

    1. Look at the former book through the eyes of a different POV. Take one scene from your previous book and tell it from the point of view of someone else who was there. This gives new perspective to that scene and will inevitably show something new to your readers about that moment.
    2. Try hard to avoid the flashback, or at least the lengthy flashback. If you’re going to use a flashback, use it in a real way. We don’t remember all of what happened three weeks ago, we only remember it in snippets. Time will cloud it, and whatever happened is going to effect us differently now as opposed to then.
    3. Let your character re-tell the story out loud to someone who hasn’t heard it yet. What they choose to say, or not say, will be just as important as the scene itself from the former book. And I don’t just mean; “She told him about how Porrex had attempted to have her son assassinated.” I mean really let them tell the story.

    There are a few other ways to go about this, but I think the most important thing to remember is that your characters are different in each book. Every story needs to have them growing a little bit more, have them learning something because if they aren’t then you’re just telling the same book in a different way.

  • Playing With Craft

    “Are you a pantser or an outliner?”

    “What’s your favorite part of the writing process?”

    “How do you deal with writer’s block?”

    “Where do you get your characters?”

    “Do you hand write the first draft?”

    Over the last few years I’ve heard variations of these questions from different interviews and the like and I have to be honest … at the time I didn’t really pay them too much mind.

    This year, however, I’ve reached the point of my craft where I’ve begun asking precisely why I do things the way I do.

    I “pants” the first half of a novel and then I have to outline it … but why?

    Is an outline too restrictive for the beginning of my process or am I just afraid of losing that spark of inspiration if I try?

    Well, I won’t really know the answer to that question unless I try something different.

    So!

    For the last several weeks I’ve been playing with my craft. Scrivener makes this curiously easy, especially with the 3×5 card approach, so I’ve been working on an outline for a paranormal romance.

    Why not, right?

    Just because I’ve never written in that genre before doesn’t mean I can’t. I’m only limited by myself here, and I’ll only grow if I stretch those boundaries.

    And just to make things interesting … let’s try the young adult market.

    For those who follow this blog you’ll know that I cringe at the young adult market. I disliked High School while I was in it, why would I want to go back, even in fiction? (Though now that I’m working with this outline I believe most authors hated High School and that’s how they infuse the pages with all that angst.)

    Again, we’re looking at self-imposed limitations here and I’ve decided to break free of them.

    And, given that this is a writing experiment, I’ve decided that I’m going to share this process here. This is a writing blog, after all, and maybe what I learn along the way will help someone else.

    As with any experiment, I have to lay some ground rules to follow.

    1. I will post once a week on the project beginning in December.
    2. The post will consist of comparisons between what I used to do, and what I am forcing myself to try. (Example, this book will use an outline from start to finish.)
    3. The Hard Deadline schedule will not be moved. (This means that this is a side project and cannot interfere with what I already have planned for 2016. Which is plenty, just so you know.)

    Those are pretty simple rules. The Hard Deadline schedule will be discussed next month when we start looking at New Year goals, but to help clarify a bit, I’m to begin work on Dead Weight (the sequel to Tapped) on January 1st.

    Yes, this means I will essentially have two books being created around the same time. If it proves to be too much I’ll have to focus on Dead Weight, complete it, and then resume with the experiment.

    That’s the glory of a side project. It can be moved if it needs.

    In the meantime …

    Everyone participating in NaNoWriMo … you’re awesome! Keep writing!

    I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving (if they celebrate it) or just an awesome week!

     

  • Marketing and Me

    Recently I met with another local author and had one of those Zen moments where I had to decide exactly why I write. This author was very well put together, had her spiel (aka, pitch) memorized and gave every outward appearance of success. She looked, in a word, classy.

    Flash to me … in my jeans and nondescript shirt, sporting a pair of Nike’s that are starting to get a hole in the toe. In my defense, this was a social function I’d taken my son to and a friend of mine decided I needed to make this acquaintance right then and there, so it wasn’t like I knew I was going to be meeting anyone in a professional capacity.

    That being said … this other author had a much better handle on the business of writing than I think I’ve ever had, which is what brought about the Zen moment.

    Driving home from the function, feeling not a little discouraged, I began to wonder exactly what set me apart from her and was not surprised when I came to the conclusion that she just plain knows how to market herself better than I do. She’s confident in herself and her writing.

    I’m confident that I can get through anything the world throws at me but when it comes to my writing I know that I am constantly improving, so the confidence isn’t quite there. Sedition was fun to write but Saboteur was a more solid book because I had learned a lot about style and craft between the two books. (Even though fans seem to like Sedition more, which I find curious.)

    Enter the Zen moment …

    I made the decision a long time ago that I write because I have to write, because if I don’t write my brain will explode, because there are a zillion stories floating through my mind that need to come out.

    I write because I love it.

    It’s the process that I find fulfillment in, not the sales.

    This doesn’t mean I don’t hope to sell a whole gob of books one day and secure a much brighter future for myself and my son, it just means that I will continue to do the minimum amount of marketing. Things like this blog and light conversations with interested readers, and memberships with organizations that don’t require too much money (Hello, single parent here) are all things that I can do without cutting too much into the writing time.

    At some point I imagine I’m going to have to change this decision but for right now this is what fits for me.