The benefits of creating my own world. :D

Yes. I did just use a smilie face in my title. Because I’m happy with myself.

Here’s some background: Sagi, a character in my mermaid novel, has some serious relationship issues involving some serious wife betrayal. He’s been angry at her and kept that anger for much of the past twenty-some years since her death. He’s done is best to avoid any relationship in that time, focusing instead on getting himself into a position that will permit him to be elected when the time comes.

Here was my problem: Within the matter of about a month and a half I think, he meets Chava, begins to have a serious relationship with her, and proposes. For someone who wanted nothing to do with marriage or a family or relationships at all, that seemed really fast. (Okay, maybe I really shouldn’t be writing about any complicated relationships since I haven’t ever HAD one period, but oh well. They demanded it and who I am but the writer to argue with my characters? )

No matter how I looked at it, that seemed FAST for Sagi to move.

Then I came up with a brilliant solution. What if the mermaids don’t really date? They meet someone, go out a couple times to see how things are. Probably at this point in time, there are some good personality tests they take to see if they would be compatible (that’d be basically what people would call “the next step”) and if so far there hasn’t been any major problems, they are engaged.

I don’t know if an engagement would be long, like the idea that we are still learning, or short, since most non-religions people seem to be under the opinion that you should live together for a while to fully get to know the person before marriage.

I also would need to create into this society the fact that divorce is frowned upon. (Society drives a lot of what people do after all.) Possibly even highly taxed.

However, if I have it set up so that Sagi’s relationship with Chava before she even mentions that maybe they should take a test has been going on for a long time, then that would explain more with Sagi. (It also would explain why he married his first wife even better.)

Overall, I am very pleased with this plan. Obviously, it needs some ironing out, but not only does it solve some minor plot issues I’ve been having, but it creates the mermaid world as a world separate from the human world, which I like.

Now I just have to write today. Haven’t for two days now. :(

EDIT: This also fixes my problem of why it is culturally acceptable to have a wedding within a week, though the forcing part is still a bit vague. I must work on that. (It’s a political marriage, if that makes any difference.) Oh, and I did write today.

Have any of you ever changed a part of your society to make your plot work better? Did it work for you? 

Inside a writer’s brain

Keep in mind with this post, I’m still learning. I think I’ll always be learning. That’s part of being a writer.

SAying that, here’s how I actually go from an idea to a good novel. (I think.)

1. Come up with an idea. The idea comes from anywhere. Someone sitting with their hands covered in blood at night. My teacher saying “Save the Males.” An imagine conversation that I have while sweeping the floor.

Often, these ideas will eventually connect themselves. In September I made a space ship out of a piece of wood and some string. I had a rough idea about some guy who wants to run the mail route. Then a couple months later I had a conversation in my head that eventually developed the idea of Shad as a sweeper. The ideas I enjoy most are the spontaneous  ones.

Sometimes, I need to force it a bit. Such as, why does Sagi hate the Yoni so? That took me a couple days of actual forcing to get, but it worked out.

2. Clarify the idea / write an outline. This section will include anything from writing an outline to learning about the characters. I have papers and papers where I’ll write comments about the characters, the motivations. If I need it, I’ll even write the timeline. This is all the pre-planning phase and this is where, if a story isn’t work out, I should drop it.

This is also my weakest area. I do not do enough planning because I rely too much on the characters eventual talking to me. Because of that, I end up having an extra step that I don’t always need.

3. Pre-draft writing: THis is the part of the writing where I actually begin the write the book. For some stories, I plan them well enough I don’t need to do this. However, this is my chance to take all my ideas and just spit them on the page. I need to do that. Otherwise, I’ll just keep staring at the outline and thinking, ‘This looks good. I’m ready to write.” when in reality I have no clue what their houses even look like. (Very important for science fiction stories, don’t you think?)

While writing this, I’ll put anything on the paper. I even changed my mermaids from fins into feet in the middle of it. Because I knew I would be going back, explaining, expanding and fixing.

Note: I’m sure some writers out there will call that actually my first draft. However, because it’s so bad and so vague, I call it the pre-draft. This is where I’ll drop a story if I need to.

4. 1st draft editing: Now, I go through my pre-draft and fill in everything. The things I learn about the characters are added. I add details of dress and mannerisms. Words become uniform throughout the book. By the time I’m done with this part, I have a first draft and a pretty good idea about where the story is and where it goes.

This is where I am at with my mermaid novel, if you care.

5. 2nd draft editing:  Now I’m ready to actually improve the text. I’ll change things from, “Avi felt angry at Eyal for his betrayal.” To something more along the lines of, “Avi wanted nothing more to do with Eyal after his betrayal.” I remove passive words if I see them and overall just make it an easier read.

6. Paper edit:  Now I actually need to invest money. I print out the novel on paper and begin the long, long process of editing it, then inputting the corrections. This not only lets me see my errors better, but I, for whatever reason, can play around with the words more. It gives me more freedom. Don’t ask me why a computer doesn’t do that; I don’t know. This is a really, really important step. By this time, I’ll probably show it to a few special people.

Right about now is also when I should start working on a synopsis.

7. Second computer edit: Now, I go through the story again, this time highly critically, and fix all of the errors I see. Anything! I remove as many passive verbs as I can. I keep the story tight and interesting. From that, I see what else I need to do and go from there.

By now, I pretty much get bored with my novel for one, and for two, I don’t see much of anything else that needs to be fixed.

Obviously, all writers are different. If you’re a new writer, you’re going to do less or more. I actually only did a one time read through–on the computer–of my stories and thought that was good enough when I began. So I’ve come a long way.

I’ve also seen how you can edit by putting on five different kinds of glasses. Something like, first you look at it just for structure, then you look at it for clarity, then grammar, ect. (I don’t remember them all.) That doesn’t work for me. I have to fix everything at once. Also, just because this is how it seems that I work doesn’t mean that’s how I do it for everything I write.

And, like I said, I get bored. But I’ve also heard that when you get bored with a story, that’s generally a sign you’re done with it.

When it just doesn’t work out.

I started my spring semester this week. I’ve also wrote this week. That’s a good start.

As I said earlier, I’m working through all of my Avi chapters because my mermaid book has multiple POVs and this is the best way to keep them all straight. So I get to this scene where (Yes, I’m spoiling the story. But this won’t be published for at least two years so I doubt you’ll remember it.) Avi is sworn in as the monarch, much to her dread, she meets this diver we’ve been following named Matthew and he tells her her boyfriend is a spy and her father offers to help her rule. Yeah. A lot happen in this chapter.

It’s also a pretty big chapter for me. Right now about 5,000 words. So I’ve been working on that chapter all week.

And it’s still flopping.

Now, this is the chapter that gave me writer’s block for about two months and I finally just said forget it and moved on. I actually just finished writing it this week. But still!

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It might be because i don’t understand Matthew and I don’t understand Avi’s father. For whatever reason, I can’t seem to get inside Avi’s head in this one. No matter how much I try, she is still insist that Matthew has to stay in the prison (she was freeing them in the prelude. Actually, she frees Matthew’s son.) Matthew is coming out as whiner because I can’t get inside the head of a man who is being threatned to being held prisoner under the sea for the rest of his life. And Avi’s father is coming across as a very nobel person, which he might be. I don’t know.  I just can’t get in anyone’s head.

On top of it all, my sister is talking. And talking. And talking.

I am on the computer. I am trying to edit this chapter well. And she is wanting me to pay attention to the hat she just knitted for air 1. Sure, I want to be a nice sister, but I also want to write.

I did end up finishing the chapter. I do kinda like how it ended. I’m tempted to go back and see about editing it yet again. (making it time number three) But, part of me is saying that I should wait until Matthew and Ber talk to me more. And Avi too.

Which, this is totally off topic, but talk about character change. Avi started out in my head as an impulsive, reckless, brave girl and she is turning to have a very timid part underneath her thick outer shell. I love it when characters do that, though as I write that, I’m wondering if it reflects what I feel right now. Could characters reflect what is currently going on in our lives?

I bet so.

Anyway, I get to move onto my really bad chapters. I think it might not be all that bad once I fix them up though. (Except for Nessa’s story. She needs a lot of help.) I really need to figure out a more effective way to write but until then, I’m just going to have to go with this. (I keep threatening to share how I write. Maybe I should do that tomorrow.) It just means a LOT of rewriting.

What to test for DNA?

So, I don’t know how accurate this website is, because it is a giant ad for DNA testing materials. However, it’s fun, so I’m posting it anyway.

This is a chart of all the possible ways to get DNA from someone who doesn’t want to cooperate. I’ll give you a hint. Hero walks into the bad guys office and gets a chance to snag cigarette butts or an envelope he just licked, smoking works for the hero’s advantage here. :D

On that same note, the heroine doesn’t need to try to get semen from the bad guy if the bad guy happens to have a cold.

I think I’ll always be learning how to write.

So, I’ve been working on the mermaid novel. There’s two things that make this a learning experiance for me.

1) My first novel I planned for a year before I wrote it. This one, I started planning for it about a year ago.

2) Multiple POVs.

I didn’t expect multiple POVs to make a difference. Boy, am I wrong!

The biggest one that it makes a difference in is AVi, because Avi doesn’t have a consistent appearance. I have about 45 chapters and of those, she only gets about seven. I need then to still be consistent but even when editing, I see her so inconstantly that I don’t get a good feel for her character.

Last night, I figured out the obvious solution. I edit them in order of character’s POV. As such, because I like Avi right now, I edit all of the Avi scenes. Then I move onto another character and another until I’m done.

I got this idea because while I was editing a scene involving Ronen intentionally ignoring her, I realized that when Ronen decides he’s going to actually show he likes her, he’s going to kiss her. This makes me really excited. Now, normally, I couldn’t do anything about that until I go from chapter 8 to chapter 25. Instead of having to wait that long, I now get to jump ahead and edit chapter 24 and 25 where that happens. Then I get to jump ahead to when Avi discovers that her real boyfriend betrayed her.

For once, the story doesn’t seem so completely overwhelming. And though I know that I used future scenes to motivate me to write current scenes, I have a new plan for the boring scenes. I ask myself a few questions.

This scene is boring.

1) Is this scene needed? Why? If no, delete and move on. If yes, go to question 2.

2) Would it be better to rewrite the scene how that I know the point or try to salvage what I wrote?

Typically, I find that if I’m finding a scene to be boring to edit, it’s either so badly written that I should just restart or, more likely, it isn’t even needed or can be combined with another scene. (I did that with Shad and the resulting scene was sweet!)

It’s funny, because even though I can skim the books in Barnes  and Noble and say I know most of it, I can still discover things that I still need to learn. It’s partly what makes writing fun. Maybe that’s actually why I like it so much.

The art of hinting

Subtile information in stories is good. That’s how I like giving information in fact. I hate telling the reader flat out that such-and-such is going on. It’s much more fun to make the reader guess and think that it’s happening.

However, just because I like doing it doesn’t mean I’m good at it.

Especially with it comes to romance.

In my mermaid novel, I have two possible romances. Okay. Forget possible. I have two real romances.

Romance one is between Nessa’s bad/evil/corrupt brother, Sagi, and a woman who helps him win the election, Chava. Somehow, I need to make it seem perfectly understandable both why Sagi likes Chava, when he’s avoided all other possible romances for the last twenty years, and even more importantly, why Chava likes Sagi, all by the halfway point of the book. The Sagi one is going to be particularly hard considering that he has been basically breaking the law, been a jerk to his sister, cheated on the election and poisoned his dad. (Though I don’t think the reader will know for sure that the dad is poisoned until after they get together, and Chava knows none of this.)

All this when I haven’t really had any real relationship ever. I can’t imagine it’ll seem that realistic.

Yet, that’s the easy romance.

The harder romance is between Nessa’s half sister, Avi, and a lawyer, Ronen. if you haven’t read Just Trust Me, you should, but besides that, you would know that Avi is considered a huge shame upon her family because her mother had an affair with an Adamah, what would be pretty equal with the blacks of the South in the 1950s. (Keep in mind, Nessa’s family is royal.) Ronen, on the other hand, hates Adamahs because they killed his best friend when he was younger and then basically got off the hook.

However, he starts to like Avi.  He doesn’t want to like Avi so he promptly tries to be curt with her. (In the mean time, Eyal starts to woo Avi but that’s for a completely other problem I’m having, also involving hinting, but I won’t put it here so I don’t give out too many hints.) So, I need him to somehow be mean without being too mean and I don’t know what to do about that!

*sigh*

This all comes because I’m working on fixing up this chapter that invovles an argument with Avi and Ronen but I don’t have any basis for the argument. As such, it seems awkward and uncertain in my mind. I’m not even sure if it is needed. But if I can properly set the scene, perhaps I can make it needed.

Which sounds horrible. But I don’t think that I can just drop it. Otherwise, I do this huge jump from a debate and Sagi’s reaction to the debate to Nessa’s seating. Okay, maybe I could jump that much. But I really want to get some Avi/Ronen action.

This is why I should have properly listened to myself and sworn off love stories. Because then I wouldn’t have this issue at all.

Then again, I still would, because I have the problem with Eyal’s background, Sagi remember Gilah, Itamar changing against Nessa, and hundreds of other little things to sneak into the story.

And did I say before that I like writing novels? Maybe I should change my mind on that one. :)

Why science-fiction should more be science-fantasy more often.

I’m going to get killed for that one, aren’t I? But see, here’s my logic. Space is monstrous! Huge! The logic that we could ever actually travel through the whole thing is ridiculous and insane.

Let me illistrate.

Here is a picture of how far away the moon and Earth are to each other.  That’s far away, when you think that is Earth in the picture.

Then, here is another illustration of how small our Sun, and yes, I mean our SUN, is compared to many other things in the galaxy. I’m assuming it’s accurate. It seems fair.

And through all that, we writers actually pretend to say that people can travel across this space.

Yeah right.

But then again, as writers, we are allowed a few liberties and one of those is the idea of warp/jump/faster-than-light engines. But I still say that I write probably more science fantasy than science fiction.

Under the sea!

One of my many stories right now is about mermaids. I began wondering then about how far down a storm can be felt, which caused me to stumble upon an FAQ about submarines. Now, normally, I don’t like about.com but this page was actually rather useful. Not only did it give me my answer (Hurricanes can distort water about 400 feet below) but it answers about 49 other questions about submarines. It also gave me a few thoughts about space ships. Might be worth a glance at.

So–tell me about your character?

I took this out of my textbook for creative writing, then added a question to handle the science fiction / fantasy character’s that I typically deal with. It’s actually kinda cool how it comes out. I did it for two characters so far and it was rather fun. Especially for the one chararacter that I just randomly started writing for.

What is your character’s name?  What sounds right for this character?   What fits? What does this name suggest about your character’s personality?  Does your character use  his/her given name or a nickname? If so, why?  Has your character ever had a nickname?

If you were going to buy a casual outfit for this character, what would you buy?  What image does he/she cultivate?  What does this image say about him/her?

If your character could have three wishes granted, what would they be?

Likewise, what three things does your character most want NOT to happen to him/her?

Does this character have any special skill or ability; if so, what? How did he/she discover this ability? How did he/she train? What limits does he/she have on this ability?

If you were to enter this characters’ bedroom for the first time, what would you notice? Name four objects that immediately stand out. What are the dominate colors of the room? What sounds do you hear?. If you were to spend an hour snooping in this room, would you find anything hidden? If so, what?

What obsessions does your character have?

Describe your character’s belief systems–or lack of belief system–and sketch out how he or she came to believe these things.

Your character is in an uncharacteristically honest mood. How would he/she finish these statements?

To understand me, you first need to understand….

I don’t usually tell anyone this, but when I was a kid… 

If I had a million dollars I would…. 

Where does your character work?   What specifically is his/her job?  How does your character feel about this job?  How long as he/she worked there?

Describe your character’s average Wednesday? Where is your character at 8AM, 10 AM, noon. 3 PM, 6 PM and 10 PM? How does this compare to an average Saturday?

How much money does your character have in the bank or in investments? Where did this money come from?

What are your character’s most substantial character flaws or shortcomings or personality? Does he or she recognize them?

What are your character’s most significant character strengths?

Does your character have any brothers or sisters?   If so, which one is his or her favorite and why? If your character only has one sibling, what does your character like best about this person and like the least?  If your character is an only child, did he/she ever want another sibling? Why?

How many closes friends does your character have? Name them.

Who is your character’s closest friend and why? Describe their history as friends.

What is the worst thing your character has ever done? What is the worst non-illegal thing your character has ever done?

Describe your character’s relationships with his/her parents.

If your character were in to die today, what would he or she be most like to be remembered for?

List three things about your character that will most likely NOT be included in your story.

On Poverty

I wrote a while ago that I tend to write stories about people who actually have money, and I found that interesting considering that I don’t have a whole lot. However, another group of people that I write some about is people who scrap by. Not surprisingly, I give these characters very middle class view points, as that’s about all I’ve had. (And lower middle class at that.)

Then, last Wednesday, we talked in class about poverty and the mindset of poverty. Because of the reflection that I needed to write for that class, I found an article that compares the classes. This is from a book called A Framework for Understanding Poverty. It actually sounds like a very interesting book, although that many one star reviews do bother me slightly on the validity of that, so I’d look into reviews before you rush off to buy.

It does, however, give us writers a chance to start thinking about the mindset of other people. It’s easy to create a mindset of all middle class characters, but by even looking at the differences between classes, that is presented in a nice little table here, it can give us more ideas about how to rework mindsets for our characters.