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Edit: I actually do have a character page for these characters, but it's rather dated, and since I'm using this exercise, I am changing a few things. Feel free to compare the older version against the newer one, hopefully there is a little more connection between my readers and my characters. I think they were a little cold before, I'm hoping this will make them more likable.
So, I realized that I do not have Character charts for Salome and Donovan yet. What are you talking about, you may ask? Well, a way of delving deeper into the main characters, finding out more about what they are like, their motivations, their strengths and weaknesses, all of the things that will make them seem like real people and that readers are going to be more interested in them because I, the writer, have explained all of these things.
Now, I don't really know if I have done a good job so far of describing my heroine and hero as of yet, so I thought I might make a few posts about them.
I found this excellent list via the NaNoWriMo forum (National Novel Writing Month), and I am going to take some time to fill out this little questionnaire for Salome and Donovan, writing from their perspective. Bear with me, it may take awhile, but I hope the exercise comes in handy for re-writes, and oh, yes, I feel certain there will be rewrites.
I am a terrible info-dumper, and I'm even worse at believable dialogue, with the occasional exception for a witty exchange or a brilliant defining moment, that usually comes to me in the shower or a dream. Yeah, I go to bed thinking of my characters, and sometimes they do amazing things, and if I'm lucky I remember to write it down in the morning. Other times, my dreams are vivid, but not anything about what I fell asleep thinking about. Must put notebook by the bed, hubby will think I'm crazy. Wait, he already thinks that, ok, then I'm good!
Tangent aside, here is the list of questions Salome and Donovan are going to have to answer, and I'll be posting their responses over the next little while, hope you like!
01 – Introduce yourself, in great detail
02 – Your first love, in great detail
03 – Your parents, in great detail
04 – What you ate today, in great detail
05 – Your definition of love, in great detail
06 – Your day, in great detail
07 – Your best friend, in great detail
08 – A moment, in great detail
09 – Your beliefs, in great detail
10 – What you wore today, in great detail
11 – Your siblings, in great detail
12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail
13 – This week, in great detail
14 – What you wore today, in great detail
15 – Your dreams, in great detail
16 – Your first kiss, in great detail
17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail
18 – Your favorite birthday, in great detail
19 – Something you regret, in great detail
20 – This month, in great detail
21 – Another moment, in great detail
22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail
23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail
25 – A first, in great detail
26 – Your fears, in great detail
27 – Your favorite place, in great detail
28 – Something that you miss, in great detail
29 – Your aspirations, in great detail
30 – One last moment, in great detail
Showing posts with label Writing Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Tips. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Chapter One Available Now
So I just updated my companion blog to include the first full chapter of Salome's story: Chapter One
I have also concluded that I will no longer post stories past Chapter Ten, which is where I had stopped posting my Empress story. This is for a couple of reasons:
1. These are still works in progress, and in much need of revision, so they are by no means complete.
2. The ever present fear of plagiarism. Take my story and I find out about it, my postings are proof of your theft, but why push the envelope?
3. Back to the case of plagiarism. Steal the first bits of my story, fine, but go ahead and make up the rest of the story on your own, I dare you. You have no idea where I was going with it, so best of luck to you. If you had to steal my stuff, then that just proves I'm a better writer than you are, so HA!
4. Let's say you read my stuff and love it. That's awesome, but of course, the ultimate goal is to be a published author, which implies that someday it's going to cost people money. Why buy the cow when the milk is free, right? I love you all for bothering to find me here and appreciating my own form of crazysauce (love that term, courtesy Smart Bitches, Trashy Books) but yeah, if you want to read the rest, it'll cost you. Unless you're like totally my best friend or a bitching editor and I need your help. :)
Anywho, hop on over to my other site to read more of Salome's story and give me some feedback. I am mightily aware I am guilty of what is known as Info Dumping, and could really use some advice on how to fix that issue for a more riveting, cleaner read in final revisions.
I have also concluded that I will no longer post stories past Chapter Ten, which is where I had stopped posting my Empress story. This is for a couple of reasons:
1. These are still works in progress, and in much need of revision, so they are by no means complete.
2. The ever present fear of plagiarism. Take my story and I find out about it, my postings are proof of your theft, but why push the envelope?
3. Back to the case of plagiarism. Steal the first bits of my story, fine, but go ahead and make up the rest of the story on your own, I dare you. You have no idea where I was going with it, so best of luck to you. If you had to steal my stuff, then that just proves I'm a better writer than you are, so HA!
4. Let's say you read my stuff and love it. That's awesome, but of course, the ultimate goal is to be a published author, which implies that someday it's going to cost people money. Why buy the cow when the milk is free, right? I love you all for bothering to find me here and appreciating my own form of crazysauce (love that term, courtesy Smart Bitches, Trashy Books) but yeah, if you want to read the rest, it'll cost you. Unless you're like totally my best friend or a bitching editor and I need your help. :)
Anywho, hop on over to my other site to read more of Salome's story and give me some feedback. I am mightily aware I am guilty of what is known as Info Dumping, and could really use some advice on how to fix that issue for a more riveting, cleaner read in final revisions.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
What's In a Name?
I have probably posted on this subject before, but it bears repeating! Deciding on names for characters is blasted hard. I am the proud owner of quite a few baby name books, which came in handy for deciding on names for my actual children, but the children of my novels require even more effort. Why is it so hard?
Well, for one, you want the name you pick for your main characters to have some kind of deeper meaning, to stand out from the crowd, and in the case of historicals, you don't want to veer so far from the name trends of the time that you alienate yourself. I don't have too many issues with main characters, they seem to come to me with a little name tag on their chest that reads: Hello, my name is:
The real difficulty for me comes in with secondary characters. You can't have a whole story filled up with only your main characters, that would be rather boring, don't you agree? They are bound to come into contact with other people in the course of their adventures. In the case of my latest project, I have to fill up plenty of ballrooms and such with Regency appropriate names, and heaven's mercy, titles. So how delighted am I that I just found this website: Regency Name Generator
Fantastic! Now every time I want to make a random character, voila! I have a name to fit. Hope this resource helps others with my dilemma, you're welcome.
Well, for one, you want the name you pick for your main characters to have some kind of deeper meaning, to stand out from the crowd, and in the case of historicals, you don't want to veer so far from the name trends of the time that you alienate yourself. I don't have too many issues with main characters, they seem to come to me with a little name tag on their chest that reads: Hello, my name is:
The real difficulty for me comes in with secondary characters. You can't have a whole story filled up with only your main characters, that would be rather boring, don't you agree? They are bound to come into contact with other people in the course of their adventures. In the case of my latest project, I have to fill up plenty of ballrooms and such with Regency appropriate names, and heaven's mercy, titles. So how delighted am I that I just found this website: Regency Name Generator
Fantastic! Now every time I want to make a random character, voila! I have a name to fit. Hope this resource helps others with my dilemma, you're welcome.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Chapter and Story Length...
Ok, so I'm well and into my story, past what I thought would be a good break for the first chapter. Then I start looking at my word count. I'm at 1,750 for the first chapter. Sounds like a decent start, but its only like 4 pages long. So that doesn't feel quite right to me and I do a little digging to see what publishers look for in manuscripts.
I found this site to be a great resource (http://www.charlottedillon.com/WritingRomance.html).
Don't be put off because it says "Romance", even if you don't write romance, there are alot of general tips and tricks that come for readers of all sorts.
Things to remember if you plan on submitting a manuscript:
(check out the "Writing How To" Link, and then "Manuscript Preparation")
1. Standard manuscript format is in 12 pt. Courier Font, 10 words per line, 25 lines per page.
- Word can be set up this way by giving yourself 1" margins all the way around, and instead of just double-spacing, you can set it to either 1.5 or "Exactly" and type 25 pt. in "Paragraph" options. I have numbered my lines as well just to make sure I'm where I need to be.
(So this right there doubles my page count, right? ok, so now I'm up to 8 pages.)
2. Start each chapter with a chapter heading about halfway down the page. (9 pages now)
3. At this point, it is important to remember that an editor will count each page as 250 words, whether the page is full or not. This probably bumps up actual word count in many cases. (This makes 1750 look like 2250).
4. Guidelines for various publishing houses vary, so it is important you're targeting the right kind or you just end up on the "slush pile", so make sure you check that your story is compatible and marketed in the right places. (My particular genre for this story is falling under "Fantasy Romance", and even within this there are variations. I am aiming for a pretty good sized novel, so I am aiming for 75,000 words, which seems to be about mid-line. Great, only 72,250 more to go!)
5. Chapter length can vary, but for a decent sized novel (100,000 words), average chapters break around 15 pages. (Uh oh... Some more quick math says that if my average chapter is the same size as what I have now, I will need 33 chapters. I have a basic outline of the action I foresee for my characters, and I am only getting to 24 chapters, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue, could it be I don't have enough material????)
Ok, so I'm not super stressing, because right now, the point of my writing is just to get it out there... I know very well that with my fellow blogger's help and my own critical eye, I will be hacking and slashing, adding and embellishing, and my story will be fully fleshed, but just for safety's sake, for now, I am combining what I feel should be Chapter Two into One. This isn't too bad of a stretch, it's really just a change of POV (point of view), so now I think I can establish a pattern. If each chapter spends some time with each main character, (for the most part) it approximately doubles the chapter length.
Following this plan so far, I am now at a first chapter length I am somewhat happy with, 14 pages, with Word's count falling at 3,540, an editor's count would be 3,500. All the same, I think it still needs some work. Please don't think by any means anything I post is considered a final draft, it's posted to gather opinions on what should be added, changed, or just plain trashed. I am ok if you are brutal!
So there are my views on chapter length, in your own writing, feel free to make things as long or short as they need to be to make you happy. Chapters have a way of ending themselves, usually on some cliffhanger or change in time and/or place.
I found this site to be a great resource (http://www.charlottedillon.com/WritingRomance.html).
Don't be put off because it says "Romance", even if you don't write romance, there are alot of general tips and tricks that come for readers of all sorts.
Things to remember if you plan on submitting a manuscript:
(check out the "Writing How To" Link, and then "Manuscript Preparation")
1. Standard manuscript format is in 12 pt. Courier Font, 10 words per line, 25 lines per page.
- Word can be set up this way by giving yourself 1" margins all the way around, and instead of just double-spacing, you can set it to either 1.5 or "Exactly" and type 25 pt. in "Paragraph" options. I have numbered my lines as well just to make sure I'm where I need to be.
(So this right there doubles my page count, right? ok, so now I'm up to 8 pages.)
2. Start each chapter with a chapter heading about halfway down the page. (9 pages now)
3. At this point, it is important to remember that an editor will count each page as 250 words, whether the page is full or not. This probably bumps up actual word count in many cases. (This makes 1750 look like 2250).
4. Guidelines for various publishing houses vary, so it is important you're targeting the right kind or you just end up on the "slush pile", so make sure you check that your story is compatible and marketed in the right places. (My particular genre for this story is falling under "Fantasy Romance", and even within this there are variations. I am aiming for a pretty good sized novel, so I am aiming for 75,000 words, which seems to be about mid-line. Great, only 72,250 more to go!)
5. Chapter length can vary, but for a decent sized novel (100,000 words), average chapters break around 15 pages. (Uh oh... Some more quick math says that if my average chapter is the same size as what I have now, I will need 33 chapters. I have a basic outline of the action I foresee for my characters, and I am only getting to 24 chapters, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue, could it be I don't have enough material????)
Ok, so I'm not super stressing, because right now, the point of my writing is just to get it out there... I know very well that with my fellow blogger's help and my own critical eye, I will be hacking and slashing, adding and embellishing, and my story will be fully fleshed, but just for safety's sake, for now, I am combining what I feel should be Chapter Two into One. This isn't too bad of a stretch, it's really just a change of POV (point of view), so now I think I can establish a pattern. If each chapter spends some time with each main character, (for the most part) it approximately doubles the chapter length.
Following this plan so far, I am now at a first chapter length I am somewhat happy with, 14 pages, with Word's count falling at 3,540, an editor's count would be 3,500. All the same, I think it still needs some work. Please don't think by any means anything I post is considered a final draft, it's posted to gather opinions on what should be added, changed, or just plain trashed. I am ok if you are brutal!
So there are my views on chapter length, in your own writing, feel free to make things as long or short as they need to be to make you happy. Chapters have a way of ending themselves, usually on some cliffhanger or change in time and/or place.
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