Wednesday's Writing Prompt — Visual Pathways

Choose one of the photos below, placing your character into the scene. You can base the selection on which photo best fits into your general setting, or choose the one the challenges your character most.

Is your character coming, or going? What lies ahead? What lies behind? What brought him here? What emotions are associated with this place? Was it his choice to come here? What are the consequence of that choice, whether his own or someone else's?

Signs of Commitment

This week has been challenging for me in terms of writing. Words don't seem to flow, ideas are feeling weak, and a busy schedule makes writing challenging. Things just haven't been in my favor. And as a result, I've felt a bit bad. Bad about not moving the story forward; bad about why my ideas just aren't as good as usual; and bad because I'm not meeting my predetermined goals. But when weeks like this come and tiredness, busyness, good days or bad days get in the way, interrupting your projected writing schedule and just throwing you off, how can you respond?

There's no easy answer. Life often gets in the way of writing. That is a simple fact. If only we could all not work and spend our days writing when the muse strikes us or sleeping when we're tired or doing whatever else we enjoy. If only writing was just so easy each and every day. But given the reality that writing/life isn't so easy, there are some practical things we can do to try to produce and create a good writing environment. But despite these practical writing tips (which I'll be blogging about soon), there are days (or several) where thins just don't work out. So what then?

Each week is not going to be as productive as you might like, and while being as proactive as you can be in order to protect your writing schedule and produce more is important, so, too, is the acceptance that each week just might not be the same. I've definitely felt some guilt surrounding my lack of progress this week. But I don't know that feeling guilty is the way to go. Guilt, like a lack of confidence or setting extremely unrealistic goals, mostly works as a form of self defeat (which definitely doesn't lead to greater writing). Of course, I admittedly feel a twinge of guilt about how much I didn't get done this week, but instead of seeing this as such a downer, I think this feeling can be looked at as a positive. Guilt is indicative of a greater feeling, a more positive feeling, which in this case is commitment and the desire to write.

When your desire and commitment to writing results in feelings of guilt, that means you are definitely dedicated to your craft. You are serious about writing. And just like other things you are serious about, sometimes you wish you had done more. Writing has its ups and downs, and so, too, will your feelings about writing. That's only natural. My feelings, like my writing, were not so great this week, but that doesn't mean this new week might not be great. And it doesn't mean I should become so upset with myself that I can't move forward and get back on track.

Try to accept the days when writing is a struggle, and the guilt that can come with that. But be sure to continue looking ahead, with a positive attitude, knowing that the guilt is only pushing you forward to greater writing ahead. The guilt is simply a sign of your commitment. So just try to accept the feelings, push them aside, and keep on writing, because one bad week is certainly not going to stop you from reaching your goals.

Wednesday's Writing Prompt — Memory

Have your character recall an embarrassing memory.
Why does he remember this memory so vividly? What did the moment signify? How does this memory relate to the character's current life situation? What does it show about their personality?

In what ways can this also provide the building blocks for a new scene, or a new conflict?

Deciding on Chapter Lengths

Working on my new novel, and revising my other, I've encountered the sometimes difficult choices of deciding on chapter lengths. At times, chapters seem to organically organize themselves, providing you, the writer, with a natural starting and stopping point based on the arc of that portion of the story. But, problems can arise when you seem to have a hard time knowing when one chapter should end and another should begin, or how much a chapter should cover, or what to do when chapter lengths vary so greatly that each chapter is vastly different than the last.

I think I should first mention that this is something that becomes more of a primary concern when revising a work. You don't want to become so focused on this during the writing process that it bogs you down or prevents you from following the flow of the novel. It definitely comes into play when writing, but more consciously takes part during revisions — at least in my opinion. In fact, you can spend an entire revision session dedicated just to chapter lengths, endings and beginnings (this session is still upcoming for me!).

But why such a focus on lengths, you ask? A significant portion of the answer is consistency. While at times you might make a conscious, artistic choice to vary chapter lengths for a given reason, I would say on the whole, chapters tend to be around the same page length within a given book. Like every other part of the novel's structure, this adds to the form, and the form adds to the reading experience.
Finding consistency within the length of your chapters enables the reader to create a kind of expectation. They expect a chapter to cover a certain amount of ground — however unexpected the plot might be.

Like the larger work, chapters also have a beginning, middle and end. Each chapter has an individual story arc that builds upon and adds to the tension, plot, and characterization of the novel. Deciding on chapter lengths thus should center around this structure. Chapters shouldn't go on and on without getting to a point; nor should they be so short that there is not enough time for something significant to happen. All chapters are not strictly episodic in nature: some serve to develop characterization; others fill in backstory. But seeing chapters through an episodic lens can help to reveal the purpose of that chapter and draw out the points you want to make sure to make.

Even if the chapters aren't all the same length, the length of the individual chapter is still important to consider. Each chapter should be the length it is for a reason. No one might ever know the reason but you, and your reader might not even pick up on it, but it is important for you, the author, to be aware that each chapter serves a specific purpose and contains the necessary parts.

There is no rule about how long chapters should be. This decision depends partly on the age of your target audience (this is a primary concern for me), partly on the artistic vision for your work, and partly on what seems natural within the space of your project. One thing you also want to remember is that chapter breaks also provide the reader a break, or a place to pause. You don't want to have your reader constantly wondering when a chapter is going to end, even if only for the sake of wanting a comfortable stopping point when the rest of your life is calling you away from the book.

The length of your chapters might not be something that wins you critical acclaim (as many readers might not give it a second thought —unless the chapter lengths are somehow not working) but it is important to consider within the greater process of constructing your novel. Hopefully, you will just know what works naturally for your project. But if you don't, don't be discouraged! It will all be figured out with a little revision.

Wednesday's Writing Prompt - Headlines

Go to any online or print newspaper and find a headline that grabs your attention. Without reading the article, begin a story from the point of view of someone affected by the headline. How does this piece of news play a significant role in his/her life? Based on this news, what conflicts arise for your protagonist?

Pieces of news are a great way to spark interesting and unexpected ideas. If you're ever feeling like you need an extra boost of creativity, this is definitely a tactic you can fall back on. (And, interesting fact: I was once told that this is how Flannery O'Connor got her idea for one of her most famous stories "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"!)

Naming Your Characters

At the beginning of any novel, or more likely, in the earliest stages of the novel's conception, one of the key elements is choosing names for your cast of characters. Naming your characters is an important decision, as not only will you be writing this name over and over and thinking about your character for quite some time, but naming also should be a deliberate choice on the part of the author.

Of course, some initial thoughts about naming are simply that you don't want to choose a name that is too common or too strange; or a name a character after someone in your life (as that can be come potentially problematic); or a name that really means nothing to you. Like real life people, names become part of the fictional character's identity. So although a name may not actually tell you all that much about the character herself, it does need to be true to your character.

Additionally— and in my mind, most importantly— a character's name also creates an initial impression in the reader. And that impression is where names really start to matter. The name of the character often serves as your first bridge of connection with a reader. Imagine someone picking up your book and reading the jacket copy. What do you want them to think when they first read the character's name? Is the character meant to be a relatable, everyman type of guy who lives in the reader's reality-based world? Is the character from a distant planet where surnames follow an entirely different convention or rule? What can the reader immediately gather from the name - and more specifically, what do you want the reader to gather from that name?

For my new novel, tentatively titled Blinding and not yet appearing on my book page, I put some real thought into my protagonist's name. Set in a contemporary setting, I wanted him — the boy protagonist who is thirteen years old in his current stage of fictional life — to have name that reflected our culture's move towards more non-traditional names, but yet a name that wasn't so shocking or rare that it would be hard for the reader to accept. Therefore, I strayed away from the Matthew's and James' but didn't move quite so far as choosing a name like Blue or Moroccan. For a previous work, in which my girl protagonist had both an adopted, American name, and a name native to her Chinese heritage, I needed to find a pair of names that worked together as I wanted to establish a tangible link between her two seemingly disparate cultures. I therefore chose a set of American and Chinese names that were both the names for two flowers within the same species.

Some people seem to obsess over selecting the right names, while others simply seem to know. And it can certainly vary from project to project. But what happens when you don't have the predestined feeling that your character was simply meant to be named Luke, or Hamlet, or Marie, or Dolly? Choosing a name for characters can be difficult. My best advice is to spend some time really thinking about it, throwing a few names back and forth, and cruising through the online naming websites or baby naming book. I find the websites to be particularly helpful because you can search by categories like popular names of a certain decade, or a name's language of origin. You can also isolate names for countries, meanings, and thematic groupings.

Naming characters is an important choice, and while you don't have to slave away choosing the name for every character who appears in the ensemble of your novel, making sure to select a deliberate, and intentional name that both reflects a protagonist's identity and connects to the reader is something you want to spend some time considering. But, if you get into the novel and find it isn't working for you, changing the name is always an option, too! You have the power. You can change it anytime (and no one even has to know). Just make sure that in the end, it is a name you feel good about, for the character and for your future readers.

Wednesday's Writing Prompt - The Stage

Place your character in front of a large group of people. Determine why your character is there. Then, write a scene about what happens. Focus on the character's emotions as well as the sensory details they experience on stage.
Is your character a natural extrovert, or is he fumbling through the presentation? What is riding on this moment? Is your character trying to impress somebody? Think of the ways this connects to a potentially larger conflict.

The Perils of Starting a New Novel...

On the eve of beginning a new, upper middle-grade novel, I've been thinking about all the anxiety that surrounds this beginning. The idea for my novel came to me several months ago while riding the commuter rail to work one day, and instantly I knew it was one I wanted to pursue. So I guess this novel started there, on that train so many months ago. But now as I think about really writing it, really committing to developing the idea and spending all this time hammering it out, I don't feel quite as lighthearted as I did that day on the train. And the question is why? Why does starting the novel seem more frightening than exciting?

I think the answer to the question can mainly be answered in two parts. First is simply fear. There's the fear that comes with expectation and the hope I have for what the novel will be. For several months, I've been thinking about this piece, letting the idea simmer and testing out potential story lines in my head. I've talked to my writerly friends about the idea, gauging their response to see what works and what might need to be tweaked. And from that has arisen this cloud of expectations about all the things I want my novel to be, and how the writing process should go. While the expectation may only exist in my mind, it creates a fear that maybe my book won't be all the I want it to be. Maybe the writing process will be so hard and ideas won't just flow; maybe my protagonist won't be as interesting or I'll have trouble executing the voice in the way I imagined; maybe my idea just isn't as good as I once thought. All those questions can float around and make you, or more aptly, me, feel worried about the piece before I've even begun. Which is definitely not a good thing. Because half the battle is just writing - and know it's okay to fix it later.

The second part of the answer is more of a response to the first, but a response that is not altogether easy. Starting a novel not only takes the commitment to say, 'I am going to write this,' it takes the belief in yourself as a writer. Belief that your idea is strong, that the first draft will provide you a lot of great (though maybe rough) material to work with, and that you have the talent to create the finish product. But sometimes, this belief is the hardest part.

Ultimately, starting a novel comes down to trust. Trust in your abilities. Trust in the idea. Trust that in the end, it will all be okay. Even if at the end you are not convinced it is as great as you wanted it to be, or you can't find an agent, or don't publish this novel, the important part is that you started and that you put your all into it. Not all novels end up where you want them to, or even end at all. I think there's a time as a writer when one just has to recognize when something isn't working, or you just need a break - that perhaps its time to move on to the next project and let this one sit for a while. But knowing that you have the talent, and not letting the anxieties about the final product or your great abilities get in the way is paramount to the life of a writer.

Of course, easier said than done. But know you're not alone. Writing is a uphill climb, and like any climb, you just have to take a deep breath and starting moving forward. So wish me luck as I start my new novel. Certainly, I will be cheering you on, too!

Interview!

Check out my interview on my friend Karen's blog! And while you're there, check out her great book reviews. Spanning genres and ages, Karen provides insightful reviews on all types of children's book.
Click here for my interview with Karen!

My interview includes 3 questions about my writing, a small bio, and an excerpt from my middle grade manuscript, Breaking All the Rules.
Here's a sneak peak at the interview:

Why do you write for children?

 I write for children because those are the books that I loved most. My middle school reading years transformed me into a lover of books, and while at a young age I quickly moved onto adult literature, no other literature has impacted me in quite the same ways as the books I read during my elementary and middle school years. Children’s books allowed me to become a reader and lover of the written word. My heart remains with these books, and I really hope to make another child feel that very same excitement, identification, and desire for more literature through my own writing.