writing tips

Prompt: Spin

The prompt this week was an exercise in writing spin, the tangle we weave when at first we deceive.

Spin is a form of propaganda, a public relations, marketing, and political writing and speaking style to slant the bias interpretation of news, events, campaigns, corporation stances, and products. Manipulative and deceptive, spin uses cleverly phrased words and phrases to twist the truth. Children caught “red-handed” will often spin a yarn (where the term originates) to exaggerate or obfuscate the truth.

The prompt exercise was to pick a newsworthy topic and report on it three ways to explore the concept of spin. We did this in teams of three but it may be done by an individual.

Write a non-biased report of the topic or news item. Keep to the facts.
Write a negative slant on the topic.
Write a positive slant on the topic.

Examine the words in each.

Which words are neutral?
Which are influential?
Which are inflammatory?
Which was easier for you to write and why?

Spin doctoring, mastering the art of writing and speaking spin, is a craft based upon Socratic Questioning and rhetoric. Socratic Questions is part of critical thinking, asking enough questions to get the listener to think more about the situation, thus your arguments may become theirs as they question their rationale.

Spin writing was also called rhetoric, explained by Plato as an essential part of the “smooth-tongued oration that would inflame passions and distort the truth.”

In “The History of Political Spin (And Why It’s Not So Bad for Us As You’d Think)” on the Washingtonian, the author describes how Teddy Roosevelt used his famous PR strategy to redirect the citizens to a more hopeful attitude in a country starving and suffering.

Roosevelt reinvented presidential addresses, in those days reserved for lengthy speechmaking in honor of national anniversaries, and turned them into almost daily news events. The presidential secretary, whose role had been expanded under McKinley to include the care and feeding of the press, now offered reporters informal sit-downs with TR, even while he was in his barber’s chair—and distributing wax-cylinder recordings of his speeches. The presidential tour around the country to bolster a political point was another Roosevelt innovation.

Neil Rackman’s book, “Spin Selling,” describes the SPIN cycle as an acronym for situation questions, problem questions, implication questions and need-payoff questions.

Writing spin involves answering these questions:

What is the situation and how does it need to change and in whose favor?
What is the problem? Clearly identify it. Then ask yourself, is this really the problem or is it something else? A problem with air quality could actually be a bigger problem if the industry closed down and took its jobs somewhere else.
What is the implication of the situation and problem? Who and what is harmed? At risk? Potentially damaged? Why? Look at all of the consequences.
Identify the need or payoff. Who wins? Who loses? Why? How? Who needs to win the most and why? How do the words chosen sway an opinion or decision toward the desired outcome?

When it comes to writing fiction, we are spinning a tale, taking the reader on a biased journey through their imagination, often leading them down paths they never considered placing a foot, closing the book with their mind stretched into new directions, life journeys altered.

This example of spin explained comes from Shannon L. Alder, author and creator of Shannonisms:

Never give up on someone with a mental illness. When “I” is replaced by “We”, illness becomes wellness.

Famous author, E.B. White said:

I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular.

The art of spin is popular in movies, “Wag the Dog” is a prime blatant example, but there are more subtle examples, too. In the movie, “Promised Land (2012),” the main character, Steve, arrives in a small town as a top sales agency for a natural gas fracking company. Similar to his own impoverished hometown, he is eager to help the people in this small farming community take this “free money” opportunity to get rich quick. At first, people are eager for his arrival and offers. When a local science teacher objects, they pause and reconsider, allowing an environmental advocate to step in and question their loyalty to generations of farming with damning evidence of the impact of fracking. The town sides with him, yet you feel for Steve as he battles against this interloper. As an audience member, you feel yourself shifting sides throughout the story to the stunning but inevitable conclusion.

We are surrounded by media that specializes in convincing us to buy, vote, and choose one side or the other, rarely giving us a chance to make our own decisions based upon unbiased information.

Even reporting on the same subject, news media is found to slant toward their bias. ScienceNews magazine reported recently on how a computer can now determine bias.

Consider this excerpt from The National Review, an outlet that self-identifies as conservative:

“I’m hitting the road to earn your vote because it’s your time, and I hope you’ll join me on this journey.”

Or this slice, featured by The Nation, which self-identifies as liberal:

“Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”

From the quotes alone, you might not be able to tell whether the news outlet is liberal or conservative. But a computer probably can. Scientists developed an algorithm that, after churning through more than 200,000 quotes from 275 news outlets, discovered bias in their quote choice. Creating a graph that grouped media outlets by their selected quotes reveals pockets that pretty accurately reflect the political leanings of the outlets. The research suggests that information about an outlet’s political stripes is embedded in quote choice, surrounding context aside.

“Readers might experience very different personalities of the same politician, depending on what the news outlets they follow choose to quote from that politician’s public speeches,” says Cornell computer scientist Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, a coauthor of the study…Even though readers are exposed to the politician’s own words, “the part of the speech the reader has access to changes,” he says.

Look at the word choices and how they influence your thinking. Learn how to spot them in your own writing as well as use them to sway other characters or the reader.

For more information on writing spin and the art of spin doctors:

Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups… So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.
Philip K. Dick

Prompt: 100 Word Sentence

The prompt: A sentence with 100 words. Begin with a simple sentence, then add details, descriptions and modifiers to create a complex, detailed sentence.

The purpose of the prompt was an exercise in exploring sentence patterns and sentence lengths, based upon a presentation at Be Writing Conference in Eugene, Oregon, recently.

We often write consistent patterns. All short sentences. All long sentences. All noun, verb, object, noun, verb, object. Break the pattern by learning to write different types of sentences and sentence structures.

Exploring the Cumulative Sentence

A cumulative sentence begins with a base clause, a subject and verb and an object or just a subject and verb.

The woman sat down to write.
The woman fainted.
The man drove his car.
The child ran down the street.
The bird flew into the window.
She played the piano.
Uncle Edward leaned back in his recliner.
Her grandchild slipped on the ice.

A cumulative sentence adds the description of the action.

Here is an example by Muriel Spark in Memento Mori.

He went to speak to Mrs. Bean, tiny among the pillows, her small toothless mouth ppen like an “O,” her skin stretched thin and white over her bones, her huge eye-sockets and eyes in a fixed infant-like stare, and her sparse white hair short and straggling over her brow.

Add description of things that modify the subject. They clarify the character and move us into an emotional situation. We need the modifiers to describe the person, and their relationship. How does the character see the other person, the scene, the situation. What they see tells us more about the character as they interpret the scene.

Here is another example from William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”

His father struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head, hard but without heat, exactly as he had struck the two mules at the store, exactly as he would strike either of them with any stick in order to kill a horse fly, his voice still without heat or anger.

We see the action of the hand striking the head, and we could assume many different emotions, justifications, and reactions, but the modification of the action implies the emotionless nature of the action, and reveals much about the character of the father, that he treats his animals and children equally.

In the following example in Dan Delillo’s “The Names” (Russian to English translation), he describes the wind as a character itself, and how essential the wind is to the story, mood of the story, and the life of the people in the story.

Some nights the wind never stops, beginning in a clean shrill pitch that broadens and deepens to a careless and suspenseful force, rattling shutters, knocking things off the balconies, creating a pause in one’s mind, a waiting-for-the-full-force-to-hit. Inside the apartment, closet doors swing open, creak shut.

Consider how the sentence travels? Does it incorporate backstory, create emotion, rhythm, pace. Sometimes the force of a sentence’s pattern and rhythm takes you to an intense place or state of emotion. This is very useful to moving the story forward and pulling the reader along, consuming each word, eager for the next, feeling what the character is feeling.

Use a cumulative sentence pattern as you wish, or not, in your writing, but learn how to recognize them and work with them. They can break up your short sentence pattern, add more to the story, and describe a moment to bring the reader there with you and the character.

This prompt is meant to explore the boundaries of how we normally write.

The Prompt

The prompt assignment:

Write a modifying cumulative sentence. Start with a noun, verb, and object, then modify it to a minimum 75 to 100 words [pick one].

An alternative for those handwriting and not willing to count, write at least 10 lines handwritten on typical school notebook paper.

This typically takes about 10-15 minutes – most of us write 400 to 600 words in our prompts, some more.

Scrivener: Printing Your Manuscript

The process of printing a manuscript in Scrivener is called compiling. It represents the power in Scrivener to literally compile your writing how you wish it to appear in print or in a digital file for the next steps in preparing your book for publishing.

In one of my Scrivener projects, I have 6 versions of a book I’m working on.

The original draft
Second and third drafts
A copy edited version returned from a copy editor
The cleaned up version of that copy editor
Another version with alpha reader edits added

I could have even more versions, and at any time along the process of writing I could print out any of these versions for posterity, or go back to an earlier version to find out why I wrote it that way or what an editor had to say, or restore an edited version to one of the original versions, all within the same project file.

When it comes time to print these versions, or the final glorified version of my manuscript, it begins with a compilation process as I choose which documents to include or exclude from the version I’m creating – or, in Scrivener language, compiling.

Remember, as discussed in the tutorial on how to format your manuscript for writing, what appears on the screen may be different what the final version prints. (more…)

Scrivener: Formatting Your Manuscript for Writing

I’ve been asked to continue this ongoing series on how to use Scrivener, a powerful writing tool that is a must for many professional writers. Scrivener works for those writing poetry, fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, and…the list is long. It is a pre-production tool, a tool for the writing and development of your material for publishing. While Scrivener includes the ability to export the information as an ebook and material ready for publishing, it isn’t designed as a tool for publishing a pretty book. It is the workhorse that gets you to that point.

Scrivener is software installed on your Windows or Mac machine and is produced by Literature and Latte. The price is very reasonable and the purchased version of Scrivener maybe installed on your desktop and laptop without problems so you may work in both environments.

So far in this series we’ve covered:

In this part of the series, I’ll cover how to set the standard format for new documents, the process of fixing content that comes in a jumble in formatting, and how to set the default or standard format for new documents in Scrivener projects.

Setting the Standard Format for New Documents

Let’s begin with how to set the standard formatting for new documents in Scrivener, projects you are just starting. I’ll cover the process for Windows machines. It might be slightly different for Mac. (more…)

NaNoWriMo: The Half-Way Point with the Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Resources to Finish

It’s the half way point in NaNoWriMo and our Prompt-a-Day project is also half way through, hopefully inspiring you to look at your writing and characters in a new way.

Writers in the Grove now has 10 members participating. One participated last year, so this is a huge leap and we are so proud of everyone.

Because our group is so diverse in writing subject matter, age, and skills, we’ve made a few adjustments to the NaNoNoWriMo guidelines. Those that are willing to stick with the word count as a score card are continuing to do so, report in to NaNoWriMo’s check in for the region. Those who are intimidated by such accounting have committed to write for a minimum of an hour a day.

The same challenges that face the word count writers face the timed writers. What to write, how to say it, self-doubt, self-worth, and the dark cloud of wonder about how this will ever amount to something. The challenge is to let all of that go and just write. Edit on December 1, but for November, just write and see what happens.

We’ve heard from several people that their goals of plotting first went by the wayside as their characters took over. Now they are pantsing it, just writing by the seat of their characters’ pants, as one described it. “I just hang onto my keyboard and hope they take this thing somewhere.”

In the Portland region, we are getting closer and closer to 16 million words for those keeping score. That’s amazing.

To keep the momentum going, we’ve put together some guides and helpful resources and wanted to share them with you.

Novels aren’t written by muses who come down through the ceiling and shoot magic through your fingers and out onto your laptop’s keyboard. Before NaNoWriMo, some teensy part of me still believed that because writing is a creative act, it should feel easy. But fairies don’t write novels. They’re written with one simple equation:

Time + Work = Novel

Stephanie Perkins on NaNoWriMo Blog on the rewards of not giving up on your story

NaNoWriMo Survival Resources – To Get You To the Half-Way Point

The following articles and guides should help you get to the half-way point, or help you through the rest of your month long writing experiment. It is an experiment. Sometimes you know where you are going, and sometimes you have no idea, and sometimes, both are true. Edit on December 1 but keep writing through the month and see where it takes you.

Along the way, hopefully the following will help, inspire, and motivate you.

Prompts and NaNoWriMo Ass Kickers

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Get Paid to Write – How Much?

Writers in the Grove members often ask how much money they could make selling their writing. Here is a peek at some of the going rates. Don’t take “no payment but good exposure” as a reason to give your work away. Get paid for your work. You deserve it.

Let’s first start with defining the different writing markets.

You Wrote It, You Submit It: If you wrote something that others or you may think is worth publishing, send it out there. Check the submission guidelines of the magazines and publications appropriate for the material, and see if they are taking submissions. Send it in according to their submission guidelines. These are also called unsolicited submissions. If accepted, you will be paid their standard rate scale for their publication.
Pitch Your Story: Freelance writers review publication guidelines and wish/want lists and read every copy of the publication they can to come up with an idea for them. They pitch the story with a query in accordance with the submission guidelines, but it isn’t written yet. It is written upon acceptance, and paid per their standard rate scale.
Hired writing: There are many publications that hire or contract with freelance writers to write for them and pay them on a per word or story scale. These include magazines, newspapers, blogs, ghost writing, ghost blogging, and other forms. These positions are sometimes called copywriters and often includes writing for marketing and advertising as well as filler content.

Each of these pay about the same, though some more or less depending upon the publication pay rates and the specialization of the writing and writing topic.

Magazine/Editorial Writing

Magazines accept writing submissions and queries. Always check the guidelines for submission and if they are taking submissions before sending in your submission or query.

In 8 Short Story Publishers that Pay $1,000 or More by Freedom With Writing and “10 Magazines that Pay $500 or More” by The Write Life, they highlight eight top magazines and their pay rates. I did more research and found some other magazine rates and added them to the list. (Note: These rates are subject to change.)

AARP Magazine	$1 per word = est. $250-1,000
Asimov’s Science Fiction	$0.08 a word up to 20,000 words = $1,600
Cicada Magazine	$0.25 a word up to 9,000 words = $2,250
Clarkesworld	$0.10/.08 a word up to 16,000 words = $1,380
Cricket Magazine (children)	$0.25 a word up to 6,000 words = $2,250
Earth Island Journal	$0.25 a word up to 2,000 words = $500
Glimmer Train Stories (not for children)	$0.05 a word up to 12,000 words = $700
MIT Technology Review	$1.00 a word – est. for about 5,000 words = $5,000
Outside Magazine	$1-1.50 a word = est. $250-1,500
Smithsonian	$0.50 a word – est. 10,000 words = $5,000
Tai Chi Magazine	$0.15 a word = est. $500
The American Gardener	$0.20 a word est. 1,500 to 2,500 words = est. $300-600
The Nation	$0.33 a word = est. $3250-500
The Progressive	up to $1,300
The Sun	up to $1,500
Tor (speculative fiction)	$0.25 a word up to 10,000 words = $2,000
Travel and Leisure	est. $0.20 a word for about 5,000 words = $1,000
VQR (Poetry/Literature)	$0.25 a word = est. $200-500

These are general pay rates for magazines. Check their submission guidelines and rate sheets for more specific information on each publication.

Recently, some writers in our writing group mentioned they are worried about submitting their writing and having that company steal it or use it without their permission. If publications did that they would soon be out of business. However, once your writing is accepted, the copyright might transfer to their publication and agency, or at least the publication rights might be restricted. Read the fine print to ensure your rights are protected and the rights you give away are conscious decisions.

Freelance Writing

There are a variety of writing gigs for freelancers that goes beyond submissions to magazines and journals. This doesn’t mean they ignore that publishing market, they just add to it by submitting queries to publications and businesses, working-for-hire, and contract jobs. The writing market is more diversified, thus the income opportunities wider as well. For those determined to earn a living with their writing, keeping them writing while they are working on fiction or non-fiction work or other work, this is an ideal way to keep your hand in the words and be paid to do so.

The various writing job titles for freelancers include:

copywriting
ghost writing
guest blogging
blogging/blog writer
content marketer
content specialist
ghost blogging
web content writer
technical writer

Each of these titles are found on a variety of job boards, depending upon what the publication or business is looking for. The jobs may last for a few hours, days, weeks, months, or years. You choose which ones interest you and bid or submit for the work.

The Adventurous Writer reported on freelance writing pay rates and broke them down into rates for magazine and trade journals and newspapers, giving you a wide range of rates by word and hour, as well as writing jobs like proofreading, copyediting, ghostwriting, and other writing gigs. In general, the writing gigs ranged from 10 cents to $2 a word.

Who Pays Writers? is an anonymous, crowd-sourced list of publications for freelance writers and their pay rates. Anyone can submit information about a publication for freelance work and report their rate as well as their experience, giving you an unverified but general idea about these types of writing jobs.

Most blogs that pay for guest contributors or freelancers pay between $50-200 a post, typically 400-600 words. At the top dollar rate and max words, that’s $0.33 a word.

In general, you can make anywhere from $20-100/hour or charge by the project, with many projects ranging from $250-$1000s. For someone fully dedicated to freelance writing and well-disciplined, the monthly income varies from $1000 to $10,000 a month.

Carol from “Make a Living Writing” described the source of her income by client type, a clue as to where to look for profitable writing income that goes beyond just writing for print magazines. In 2011, 23% of her income came from writing for business magazine websites. By targeting companies that pay the higher rates, you can work less for more if your skills are up for the task.

If you are considering a freelance career, consider carefully the advice on hourly rates verses day rates by Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing. Also check out the Freelance Hourly Rate Calculator to help you estimate what you should be charging if you are considering freelance writing work.

For more information on submitting your work to publications, and becoming a freelance writer and selling your writing, see these resources.

How to Blog NaNoWriMo

What? Right even more during NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days? Are you crazy?

Actually, many people blog their NaNoWriMo experience on their blogs. Some even publish their daily writing on their site for their fans and community.

So many people are worried about sharing their novel idea or plot, it becomes almost a paranoia. Relax. There is much you can share without giving the whole thing away.

The fun of sharing your NaNoWriMo experience every day on your blog means you are part of a community. You are sharing your experience, the struggles, challenges, joys, discoveries, and lessons and techniques learned that might help others.

Here are some tips to help you cope if you choose to blog your NaNoWriMo experience.

Share The Journey

No matter what, share the journey.

We love learning how you got there, the good, the bad, the ugly. By sharing your journey with others, they will hopefully learn from your mistakes, but also feel inspired by how you overcame the challenges of writing 1,677 words a day for 30 days.

Just as you would jot down a description of your day in a journal, take 10 minutes at the end of the day or after you’ve completed your NaNoWriMo writing for the day, and consider the journey.

Was the writing easy today? Why? Was it a challenge, the intimidation of the blank screen getting to you? What happened? What made a difference?

Did someone say something or give you words of encouragement that impacted your attitude about your writing and your story?

Define the obstacles. What got in your way today? Was it family? Friends? Work? Illness? Or the story itself? The clearer you are in defining them, the faster you can prevent such interference going forward…sometimes. At the very least, by sharing, others may commiserate with you.

Find a new trick, tip, or technique? Share it and explain how it helps.

Let your readers and community know how you are doing so they are taking each step of the journey with you.

Crowd Source Your Stucks

“I hate my stucks,” a writer complained to me. “The stucks suck.”

We all get stuck when writing. Sometimes it is as simple as knowing the word but not finding it in your brain, or coming up with a great plot twist but it may require you learning about something you know little or nothing about.

Or there are those times when the characters aren’t talking to each other nor you, and you have stuck them into a situation you know not how to escape.

Share your stucks. Let your readers know if you get stuck and ask them how to get out of it. You don’t have to take their advice, but sometimes crowd sourcing the stucks breaks the damn, freeing your characters and your writing.

Seek a Kick in the Ass

A writer who does NaNoWriMo every year tells me that she the one year she didn’t blog her NaNoWriMo experience was the worst year for her writing. “I couldn’t get started, nor finish what I started. I needed a daily kick in the ass.”

When you blog your NaNoWriMo experience, other participants often find you and they will cheer you on when they detect you dragging, as you may for them. That’s why the meetups and social events in and around NaNoWriMo are so good for many people.

By being surrounded by determined folks who have been there, done that, wrote the writing, they know what it is like and they will lovingly kick you in the writing ass and keep you on track when you need it.

Or you can ask for it.

In “How to Shake Off Writer’s Fatigue” on the NaNoWriMo site, they recommend:

For the first few days, showing up to write every day is easy. The shiny factor hasn’t worn off yet, and the excitement over your story is almost palpable.

Then there are the other days, where the drive to write isn’t there. Adding words to your story feels like getting out of a warm, blanket-filled bed into a cold world: you don’t always want to do it, but it’s step one toward the journey ahead. Maybe you’ve written your characters into a corner with no ideas on getting them out. Or maybe you’re bored of your story but still have thousands of words to write before reaching the magical 50K…

We all go through it. There are the NaNoWriMo forums where you can find other participants to support and cheer you on, and you can blog about it and instantly feel better.

At least you wrote something in your blog. Does that count toward your daily word count? It might. 😀

Stop Writing Your Story and Build a World

Do some worldbuilding on your blog. Open the door to the world you’ve created in your novel and invite others in.

Let them ask you questions? Let them test out the furniture. See what happens when you throw open the gates to your imaginative world and watch people wander in.

They might help you build stronger walls, floors, ceilings, and gardens.

Best Practices

Schedule time to blog. You’ve scheduled time to write, now add just a few minutes, 10-15, to each day to document the day’s achievements and challenges and write it out on your blog.
Remember categories and tags. When we are in a hurry, putting thing where you can find them again gets set aside. Don’t mess up your site.
Keep it simple. Write short posts, focusing on the day’s writing activities. This isn’t the time to write a 3,000 word tutorial or technical article. Pick one topic from the day’s events to share with your experience.
Keep pictures to a minimum unless they matter. Save gratuitous images, pictures that serve as pretty and do little else, for the other months of the year.
Use lists to order your thoughts, points, and items. Unordered lists are bullet lists and numbered lists count down, making it not only easy to write but easy to read.
Be honest with yourself and others. And take a breath. NaNoWriMo can get crazy, stress you out, and make you want to throw your computer across the room. Be gentle on yourself and others and breatheeeeeeee. Remember that you love writing and every word you write is a labor of love.

Blog Your NaNoWriMo Woes, Joys, and Triumphs

We love to hear the good side of an experience, but most people like whining and complaining. Remember to include both in your NaNoWriMo posts not just to maintain balance with your readers but also within your self.

In “13 Ugly Truths About Nanowrimo,” Daniel Swensen explains why November is the worst month to do this in, but also offers up the reality of NaNoWriMo.

Nanowrimo can be a real blast, a useful experience, and a great utility for pumping out a first draft. But it’s very easy to take it too seriously and let the images of the purple bar, the winning trophy, and the approving faces of your friends coalesce into a harrowing vision of guilt and shame. When this happens, just sit back and remember, it’s just Nanowrimo. Winning is great, but it literally only means as much as you let it. Bailing out doesn’t make you a failure, or a bad writer, or a lazy no-good mutant. Sometimes, goals are just beyond our grasp for the moment.

But if you can, take the knowledge that you can walk away from Nano, consequence-free, and use it to rekindle your love of the game. You’re not here because you have to be. You’re here because you want to be. Because you love the exhilarating, exhausting, fun-as-hell rocket ride of Nanowrimo.

This isn’t a job. This is a choice. It is a learning experience. Learn it well, and the lessons will last a lifetime.

Just make the memories good ones.

Who is Blogging NaNoWriMo

There are many people blogging their NaNoWriMo experience. Here are some bloggers to monitor during November to help you see what they are doing and learn from their experiences.

Don’t have a blog? Go to WordPress.com to get a free blog and get sharing your NaNoWriMo experiences.

People Always Lie

The following is used by permission, written by Writers in the Grove member, Paula Adams, and published in the Fullerton Observer.

To Jonathan:

I love your column in the Fullerton Observer, but I got a surprise bump in the first line of your mid-September column: “I look at the picture of the boy LAYING lifeless … ” What?!

I realize the lay/lie thing is a common error (except for foreigners who usually know more of our grammar than we do), but we expect the media to do better, which it usually does.

Anyway, you need a word with your proofreader: “Lay” in the present tense requires an object – unless you’re a laying hen. Thus, I lay the book aside, and in the words of that grammatically confusing prayer, ” … I lay me down to sleep.” Without the object, we lie down to sleep, Goldilocks is lying on the bed, cats lie napping in the sun, and we lie low when there’s trouble.

Of course, our beloved English language changes the rules in the past tense (sigh), but just remember:

When stretching out for a nap in the present tense, people lie.

PEOPLE ALWAYS LIE, (sigh again).

Sincerely,
Paula Adams

– – – –

Dear Paula:

Great letter. I’m not lying to you! May we print it? I’ll lay you 8 to 5 that the editor will like it. Cheers!

Jonathan

NaNoWriMo: Let Your Character Take You on a Month Long Journey

A few people have been asking me about NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days, and they want to know how it works, and how they can get involved even though they might not have a specific story to write about. We put together everything you need to know to participate in NaNoWriMo in “It’s NaNoWriMo Time: How To, Tips, Techniques, and Survival Advice,” and you will find other NaNoWriMo topics we’ve covered scattered throughout the site.

To address the question of how to participate in NaNoWriMo when you don’t have a specific story to write is a different and more complex question. Ask yourself:

Is there a story idea that haunts you, nags you, disturbs your sleep?
Is there something you’ve always thought or said, “That would make an interesting book.”
Is there a person or place that fascinates you?
Is there a hobby or special interest that you return to over and over again through your life?
Is there a skill, talent, ability, or knowledge you have that not many others do?
Is there a question that you wish someone would answer?

Here are some things you need to know about NaNoWriMo as you answer those questions:

You do not have to write a book.
You do not have to write fiction.

The reality is that you just have to write. There are prompts to stir the imagination and inspire you to write on that subject or something else in our Prompt-a-Day starting November 1.

To help some of our writers, I’d like to take a different approach to storytelling and novel writing, and that is to have you answer a question a day about a character that may be tickling your imagination.

Answer a Question a Day in Words

A writer of many novels told me years ago that sometimes her novels write themselves and sometimes she writes them, but always, her characters tell her where to take the story.

I’ve thought about that often, writing with such commitment that you, the author, steps out of the way and you let the characters tell the story.

If that sounds like fun, we’ve put together a series of questions to help you answer a question once a day with words, letting your character or characters take you on a journey.

In the wise words of our Writers in the Grove leader, M.J. Nordgren, always look for conflict – in every sentence, every paragraph, and every page. That is what makes for an exciting read – and write. These prompts are designed to help you explore the conflicts within the character, between the character and other players in the story, conflicts between the character and their environment and situation, and conflicts between the character you started with and who the character becomes as they are tested throughout your story.

There doesn’t have to be any chronology to these. That’s what editing is for. But exploring these concepts, answering these questions, may just inspire a bestseller.

As with all such prompts, let them take you where they take you. There are no rules, except those set by NaNoWriMo to write every day a minimum of 1,677 words.

Where is your character right now? Why are they there?
If your character were afraid of anything, what would it be and look like?
What are your characters habits? What body language, behaviors, tasks do they repeat regularly? Which are annoying to others? Which are annoying to self? Which are beneficial? How do they help the character?
When your character’s routine is disrupted, what happens?
What wounds does your character carry forth into their adulthood? Why?
What does your character hope for in life? Do they have goals, dreams, aspirations? What is stopping them?
What would be the worse thing that could happen to your character? How would it happen, when, and why?
Where does your character spend the most of their time daily? Describe and define it.
If your character could go anywhere in the world, money no options, where would they go and why?
Describe your character’s family. Be specific in describing the family members as well as your character’s thoughts about them.
Describe your character’s friends. Who are they, what do they look like, how did they meet, and how do they support or not support your character with their relationship?
What are your character’s expectations, the things they expect from the world, their family, and friends? How do these expectations differ from reality?
How is your character treated by other people? Is the treatment appropriate?
When put in an emergency situation, how would your character respond?
If your character was to go on a journey, how would they travel? Foot, air, wagon, car, train…? Why would they choose this method?
Describe someone your character would hate. Why?
Has your character ever been in love? What was it like? Describe the person. What happened?
Your character has a secret. What is it and why it is a secret? Who would be hurt if the knowledge was revealed?
If your character had a dinner party, who would they invite and why? What would the dinner conversation? Describe it.
Describe your character’s heroes.
Your character won the lottery or a grand prize. What would it be and how would your character handle the winnings?
Open the door to the home of your character and walk us through it. Pay attention to what is in the closets and behind closed doors.
Does your character eat when they get up in the morning or wait? When and what do they eat through a typical day, and what do they do when eating? Do they eat in, out, or in a special place? What are they eating? Why?
In your imagination, you are standing and overlooking a place in which your character lives. Describe it for every season.
Where was your character born and how does that birthplace impact the personality, history, and relationships of the character?
What makes your character laugh out loud? Why?
Describe a moment when your character’s heart was broken, never to be fully mended.
Look at your character’s hands and feet. Describe them. What are on them? Shoes, gloves? Jewelry? Tattoos?
Does your character have a job or hobby or both? Describe it in detail, and how they got into that job or hobby. What is good or bad about it?
A disaster has befallen your character and their place of residence is destroyed. What items do they mourn the loss of most?

Print this out and assign a question a day and see where your writing takes you.

For examples of more character questions to ask your character and see where they take you, see the following.

Where will your character take you?

NaNoWriMo: Beat Sheets and Story Engineering Worksheets

There are some terms you need to know if you will be participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

Plotter: A writer who plots out their story with an outline, which they tend to follow for the most part during NaNoWriMo.
Pantser: A writer tackling NaNoWriMo with little planning and forethought, just writing by the seat of their pants.

A few years ago, a new term arose, brought to light by Angela Quarles, self-labeled a Geek Girl Romance Writer. She also offers writing advice, tutorials, and tools to help writers.

In her post about her experience and the lessons learned, she describes the two key types of writers who participate in the National Novel Writing Month challenge, and invented her own type called plotser:

What’s a plotser? A cross between a pantser and a plotter, with maybe a wee bit more emphasis on the pre-plotting.

With Hurricane Sandy and other circumstances, my new agent (signed only on Oct 4) and I weren’t able to coordinate on what direction to take for a sequel to MUST LOVE BREECHES. So for most of October, I wasn’t even sure if I was participating in NaNoWriMo. Then at the end of the month, I decided to take up a premise that had nothing to do with BREECHES so I wouldn’t waste my time writing a sequel she didn’t want.

However, that meant I’d not spent time plotting at all.

I had what I thought was a fun premise and a sense of who the H/h were and so started one day late on November 2. I caught up with everyone over the weekend and was doing swimmingly until about Day 5, then my word count dribbled downward and things ground to a halt. I had no idea where I was going with this and I didn’t like feeling that way. This wasn’t the normal ‘what I’m writing is drivel’ feeling, I really felt like all my characters were just spinning their wheels waiting for something to happen. Like the plot. Ugh.

A local writer friend sagely advised me to take a break for a week, two weeks, to figure out the plot and then do a FastDraft blitz at the end. So I did! I ended up creating a spreadsheet to help myself stay focused on what I needed to discover…

As a result of her experience, she created the Story Engineering Worksheet (Excel Spreadsheet), a spreadsheet created in Excel that breaks down all the elements of a novel into their finest detail. To download, click, on the link or right click and save to your hard drive.

Described as a “mix of the four act/part structure, and beat sheets,” the worksheet is based on the spreadsheet by Jamie Gold called a beat sheet, a worksheet that structures your plot all on one page.

Described by Storyfix in their Lessons for Writers:

The “beat sheet” is a way to sequence your story, using bullets instead of whole sentences or paragraphs.

Yes, this is an outline, but it is more than that. It is a scene structure for your novel built around basic plot points or story arcs. (more…)