Description

For the October Fiction Writing Critique Group meeting at the Howell Branch Library, I prepared this handout, thanks to great articles from Writers Digest and Jane Friedman's blog.  I also wanted folks to get started thinking about NANOWRIMO. And to encourage them to plan their own writing goal for the month of November.

NANOWRIMO –  Do It Your Way

·      NANOWRIMO begins 1 November 2018 – one month, 50,000 words (1,167/day)

·      Our writing goals don’t always fit the mold

·      Make a writing commitment and then make a plan

·      Set your own/reasonable goals

·      Partner with a friend

·      Utilize the library’s NANOWRIMO space – days and times will be announced

·      As a Fiction Critique Group let’s state and track our progress

·      Why wait? Start now!

Description

Showing rather than telling is part of the magic that you have to work as a writer. In fact, it’s one of the most vital parts. Your reader has to make his way through your story or novel and then finally come away from it with a sense of characters and settings.

Example: “The city suffered significant damage in the blast.” [Too cold, too distant, too all-inclusive]

Instead: “Among the ruins, the reflection of the sun on the pieces of broken glass on the road was so strong that it was difficult to hold your head up as you walked. The smell of death was a little fainter than the day before, but the places where houses had collapsed into tile-covered heaps stank vilely and were covered with great, black swarms of flies.”

In To Kill a Mockingbird, never does Scout say her father is a good man. But throughout the novel, we know it; at the end, one of the strongest images is his goodness.

If your character is a fireman – you could say, “His job was exciting.” Or, you could say, “His heart rate elevated when his truck approached a fire.”

Balancing Act: * Your fiction has to be a balanced blend of both show and tell.*

Keep description short; get specific. “It was a beautiful sunset,” says nothing.

Describe a person through another character’s eyes;

Sprinkle description throughout the story;

Utilize the senses – sight, smell, touch, sound, taste

Setting is character; [Louise Penny’s Three Pines; Jan Karon’s Mitford] The truer your setting, the more believable will be the fictional world you invite your reader to enter. Setting can also set the mood or tone of your story, time period of your story.

“Readers’ love writing that brings the world in your head to life in theirs.” [Elizabeth Sims/WD Jan 2013]

* When describing people, stay away from hair and eye color, as well as height and weight. Many writers make the mistake of describing their characters like the people in a police blotter. Think, instead, about the way you might describe your friends. Do you know the height and weight of your friends? Do you ever think about their eye color? These features are not as interesting as other, more complex descriptors. Consider your characters' gestures, the shape of their facial features, their gait, their dimples, their scars, the way they laugh, the quality of their teeth, their stance, their fashion sense, their odor, their vocal tone, and so on.

*Think in terms of "telling details": details that let the reader see your characters while also revealing something about their minds. In this way, your descriptions can do double duty: giving the reader a physical picture while also showing an inner, mental trait. If a woman has unkempt, flyaway hair, that lets the reader see her, and it also reveals something about the character's sense of self and level of vanity. If a man has rimless, tinted glasses and a dry, taut mouth, that lets the reader see him, and it also reveals a lot about the character's personality.

*Each new scene in a story should have at least one paragraph of description to clarify where the characters are and who is present. This should happen fairly early in the scene. Whenever your readers are unsure about the physical logistics of the story, they will be unable to fully suspend their disbelief and dive in; they will be too busy trying to figure out what's going on. You never want your readers to be unsure about who, what, when, and where. Give us the situation right away. Tell us who is in the room. Locate your story in a distinct place and time.

*Too much description can bog down a story, but not enough can have the opposite effect, making the characters seem weightless and detached from reality. However, this is something to think about only during the process of revision. You should not worry about it while actively writing something new. When it comes to description, finding the right balance will take time, space, and the clarity of mind that comes from editing a finished piece, not creating a new one. While you're actively writing, don't worry about whether you're using too much or too little description. Feel free to try things and make mistakes. When in doubt, write more description than you think you'll need. You can always take things out afterward. [Abbi Geni/Jane Friedman blog 3 June 2016]

NaNoWriMo Rebels

I recently learned about a group that calls itself NaNoWriMo Rebels. These are folks that don’t fit into the 50,000 words a month criteria. They are poets, bloggers, plotters, and … The Rebels suggest participants set their own goals, like I did this past week. They also suggest that if you meet your particular goal, then log in the 1,167 words for the day. Because you met your goal. However you decide to participate, make it a successful event. The real goal is to have participants form the habit of sitting in their seat and writing every day.

In my last blog I mentioned things were going well for me until about the 20,000 word mark. It was then I had to stop and rework the first chapters. I needed a strong base from which to continue the story, and I hadn’t accomplished that. I have worked the last few days in figuring out what exactly the story is about. I had too many things going on, and the flow was interrupted by switching characters and switching settings. I had to remove several chapters at the beginning because they didn’t feel right. I pasted them at the end, because I still want the characters, but they will come in later and I will be able to show rather than tell.

My day is made when I read a blog that says everything I feel and wish I had said better! Today is that day. One of the blogs I follow is TheKill Zone, and the entry from November 20 by Clare Langley-Hawthorne was why NaNoWriMo wasn’t working for her—for all the same reasons it isn’t working for me.

NaNoWriMo – So How’s it Going?

I would answer that question with “good!” Though I would have to clarify –does it mean I am keeping up with the 1,167 words a day, or has the story progressed as I would like? Then the answer is no and yes.

The word count progressed well until about mid-month. It was at that time I realized this isn’t how I write. I can’t just throw words down to meet a daily number. I was getting lost in the story, and as the characters developed, they, too, didn’t like the way things were going.

At that point I decided my NaNoWriMo goal would be 25,000 (instead of 50,000). I was sure I could meet that. Over the last couple of days I rewrote Chapter One. Moved what was Chapter One to the end of the document with the hope I can salvage some of it later. I tweaked the next few chapters for better flow and moved chapters around. I now have a document that flows much better and I can move forward.

And, I wrote the last two chapters. That will help to keep me headed in the right direction.

Although I can’t write in the traditional NaNoWriMo style, I do appreciate their mission to get writers to write and/or work on their writing every day. That is a great habit to form.

Preparing for NANOWRIMO

I decided to sign up for NANOWRIMO this year. National November Writing Month is when writers are challenged to write 50,000 words in one month. That comes out to 1,667 words a day. A daunting task!

With two books under my belt I have a better feel for how I write. I am not one to blast through just typing anything to get to the 1,667 words a day. I am thoughtful, I edit as I go, and as the characters develop, sometimes they take the story in a different direction, which means I have to go back and adjust the previous writing to fit the new plot line.

With all that in mind, I have been planning my NANOWRIMO experience. Before writing anything, I sketched out my book into three acts. Within those acts I developed scenes that will guide me as the story unfolds.

Character bios are written and it was fun to develop new characters that protagonist Caitlyn Jamison will meet and have to figure out—who done it!

The setting has moved from Upstate New York to the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. My Virginia readers will appreciate that.

Although I may not make the 1,667 words a day, I am sure going to try to make good progress. It will be fun to be part of this worldwide community of writers.

I continue to wonder . . .why November? With the holidays looming, it is one of the busiest months of the year, especially for women. Why not NAJAWRIMO? Wouldn’t having the writing month in January make more sense?

Stay tuned for reports on how I’m doing. Only 8 more days to plan.

NANOWRIMO My Way

The start of NANOWRIMO2015 is only three days away. I encourage everyone to visit the website and view all the support that is available to writers.

I will be participating in NANOWRIMO again this year, but like last year I will be doing it my way.

It was the teaming up with a partner as we worked on our individual projects and being accountable to someone I respected and didn’t want to disappoint that kept me going to the finish line. We are teaming up again this year and I look forward to finishing another Caitlyn Jamison mystery by next summer.

Doing it my way veers somewhat from the goal of getting 50,000 words down in a month. I learned a number of things writing my first mystery, and am now applying them to my writing.

I am keeping a chapter outline, adjusting it as I make changes in each chapter.

Using the “Show all nonprinting characters” icon I am clearing out extra spaces, and making sure formatting is consistent.

Using contractions when needed.

My way might not reach the 50,000 word goal, but it sure will save me hours (days) of time when I reach the finish line.

It doesn’t matter how you participate NANOWRIMO, the bottom line is – write!

The Great Danbury State Fair - Published!

Andrea Zimmermann with her newly published book

Last October my friend Andrea Zimmermann and I decided we would do our own NANOWRIMO. We would each work on our own writing projects and be accountable to each other by producing Progress Reports each week. After starting and stopping during the writing of my mystery, this was exactly the incentive I needed.

And so it went over the months. Each weekend I sent her my word count, page count, progress made, goals for the next week, and other writing projects completed with word count. For me it was my genealogy blog, Growing up in Willow Creek.  She did the same.

Andrea got a good start on her mystery, but then signed a contract with The History Press to write the history of the Great Danbury Fair. She wasn’t much enthused about this project at first (they approached her), but I prodded her along, and then once she saw photos of the fair and interviewed local folks who went or exhibited, her excitement grew.

This week she received a shipment of her book. She was tickled beyond belief and I am so happy for her. With my novel almost ready to be published, our NANOWRIMO collaboration worked!

NANOWRIMO Prep

There are only twelve days until the start of NANOWRIMO and I’m not ready.

I learned a lot this past year while writing my first mystery. I learned that I need to do the prep work, like deciding on the geographic location, and writing good description of people and places. I need to develop character bios (and add to them when new characters present themselves). I need to keep a chapter timeline of what has happened in each chapter. And I have learned that sometimes you need the words that, had, and would. But I don’t need so many of “also.”

The NANOWRIMO website suggests the following:

Make a commitment to write each day;

Plan ahead, or not;

Review their prep resources;

Attend a webinar or tweet-chat in weeks leading up to November 1;

Interact with the NANOWRIMO community.

Over the next twelve days I will be busy fleshing out my characters and figuring out my plot lines so that when the calendar turns to Sunday 1 November, I’ll be ready to go.

In the meantime, I hope to get An Unexpected Death, a Caitlyn Jamison Mystery published!