Posts Tagged craft

Five Reasons to Keep a Writing Journal

By on July 9, 2014   /   Book Lists  

This week, I’m wrapping up the eight millionth draft of a manuscript, polishing it to a high shine before querying agents. Of course, putting the finishing touches on one manuscript has put my mental gears spinning as I think about what’s next. Should I tinker with an old manuscript, trying to salvage a story that’s been pushed aside? Or should I start fresh, seeing where my muse might lead?

I’m still not sure what direction I’ll go, but this transition from one story to the next has sent me flipping through my writing journal, weighing my options. And it’s also provided the inspiration for today’s post.

When I first started writing, I didn’t keep a journal. After all, I like things nice and neat and orderly. A writing journal is inherently messy. There are jotted down bits of dialogue. Clipped newspaper headlines. Pictures of people, places, and potted plants pilfered from magazines. A bazillion ideas for story starters. In general, just lots of “stuff.”

And it’s all an absolute mess.

So why do I do it? Why do I now jot, clip, tape, and scribble things into my writing journal, even if the chaos pushes me ever closer to crazy?

I’ve got my reasons. . . .

Writing Journal

1) How else will you remember when a friend sees a man in Wal-Mart pushing his wife in the shopping cart while the wife paints her nails?

2) Sometimes people say the darndest things. And characters have to talk, too.

10-year-old coming off of a looping roller coaster: “I kept my eyes open the whole time! . . . I just blinked kind of slow on the twisty part.”

3) Real newspaper headlines can often trump anything my imagination could ever conjure.

“Rifle cases taped to bike give away Elkhart burglar”

and . . .

“Woman fends off bear with zucchini”

4) Often, it’s that extra little detail that makes a setting come alive.

Slogan on the side of a plumbing truck: “A flush beats a full house.”

5) When I write a story, I always uncover a lot of “what if” questions then try to answer those questions in interesting ways as the story unfolds. Of course, I may need a bit of help with the initial question that gets a story rolling, and a writing journal is the perfect home in which those questions can reside.

What if . . . a boy’s dad sometimes wears a kilt?

So how about you—are you the writing-journal type? If so, take a meandering stroll through one of your journals and see what you find. You might uncover an old spark for a new story. Even if you don’t, you may find something to inspire the rest of us. Feel free to share a snatch of stolen dialogue, a meandering musing, or any other random tidbit that’s found its way into your journal over the years.

And, of course, happy writing!

T. P. Jagger, The 3-Minute Writing TeacherAlong with his MUF posts, T. P. Jagger can be found at www.tpjagger.com, where he provides brief how-to writing-tip videos as The 3-Minute Writing Teacher plus original readers’ theatre scripts for middle-grade teachers.

 

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The case for outlining

By on June 30, 2014   /   Book Lists  

I outwardly claim to be a “pantser,” writing by the seat of my pants, as I do so many other things in life. Inwardly, I yearn to be a planner in life and an outliner in writing, but my outline resistance has deep roots. And then, last spring, during a workshop on story structure, this simple comment changed my ways:

“Planning a vacation doesn’t ruin a vacation … yet,” said Claudia Gabel, senior executive editor at Katherine Tegan Books during the SCBWI Western Washington conference in April 2014.

Okay, it didn’t actually change my ways … yet. But the potential and inspiration are there. I still needed to hear from writer friends who work with outlines. Here’s what I’ve learned (bios of authors interviewed are at the end of this post):case of the library monster

If you haven’t always been an outliner, what was it about a particular book/project that turned you around?

Dori Hillestad Butler: Selling a project on a proposal and then having an editor need to see a chapter-by-chapter outline! I was a very reluctant outliner at that time. But now I actually like to outline. I think it saves me time overall. It helps me focus. And because I have an outline, I usually know what’s coming next…unless I get partway into a story and realize my outline is wrong. Sometimes that happens. When it does, I usually re-do the outline. Sometimes I wonder if my “outline” is some other writer’s idea of a “first draft.”

vanished book coverSheela Chari: I was a pantser type for sure. But when I decided to try my hand at writing a children’s mystery novel, I discovered I really needed to have a plan. Not a foggy one where I had some notion of how it would all end, but something more detailed that could help me construct a satisfying mystery story, where chronology, timing, and the sequencing of information (i.e. clues) were all crucial. There was no way to do this without planning things out on paper.

Christina Wilsdon: I have always been an outliner. I can remember writing reports about different states back in 5th grade and how putting all the information I gathered into the right categories felt so efficient and kind of like herding sheep into the right pens. Over the years, as projects got more complex, outlining helped not only to corral information but also revealed gaps I should fill and sometimes even fostered connections between categories.

Stacey R. Campbell: I did not use an outline while writing my first book. That book took me four years to complete …  Then one morning, over coffee, I read an article of the value of creating an outline and decided I would give it a try with my second book Hush. I finished writing Hush in less then six months.

Briefly, what is your process for creating an outline? Do you know the end, and build in between?

girls research book coverJennifer Phillips: I used to do a traditional outline starting with the beginning and working sequentially but then I read some writing advice that got me experimenting with the ending first. For fiction, I think this is a very interesting technique and I’m going to try it more. For non-fiction, it depends on the nature of the work. But I’ve been outlining a biography on Horace Mann that I’m slowly tackling in between other projects and life. I started with a high-level outline of the overall chapter structure first, after I had done a bunch of initial research, and then I started outlining within each chapter, just a brief description of the beginning, middle and end to make sure I’m telling a narrative story within each chapter. I also add outline notes about sensory details I want to include when I outline a book or short story.

Sheela: The outline never stays set in stone – it evolves along with the rest of my story. This way I have room to change, take the story in a new direction, but always have a game plan that I can refer back to when I get lost.

Christina: Most of my completed works are nonfiction. For these outlines, I know I usually want to go from introductory broad-overview sorts of topics and end with a wrap-up that’s broad. And then I plan the in-between.

How often do you refer to your outline?

hushStacey: Daily when I’m writing and rewriting I refer to my outline. It helps keep me moving forward. It is a map of what is to come, what has happened, and what needs to be enhanced.

Jennifer: I use my outline throughout a writing project. One reason is that it serves as my memory. I have to juggle a lot of family/work commitments and I can’t usually tackle a project in one continuous stream of writing. I also don’t feel constrained and imprisoned by it; I’ll revise the outline if a story is emerging differently than I expected. The one exception is when I’m doing a work-for-hire non-fiction book. The editorial team, in my experience, provides manuscript specs and requests an outline for initial approval before you start writing. If I want to change some significantly from the approved outline, that’s a conversation with the editor first.

For Horse-Crazy Girls OnlyChristina: For a long nonfiction book, I actually copy and paste the outline into my document, and start writing in the outline sections. I go back later and re-title the outline’s items and move and delete as  necessary.

How do you use your outline in writing a synopsis? 

Jennifer: My outlines become the first draft of a synopsis. I make a copy and work right from that file.

Stacey: As for the synopsis- so much easier with an outline!! It’s practically done for you

Any tips for reluctant outliners?

Jennifer: Just start with a high-level beginning, middle and end. Don’t get bogged down in the type of outline you may have used to write an English composition assignment. And if you’re a visual person, make it visual. Don’t torture yourself over trying to find a perfect format. Do whatever works for you!

Thank you so much to these generous authors for their insights on outlining:
Dori Hillestad Butler is the author of the Edgar-winning The Buddy Files mystery series and The Haunted Library (August 2014) chapter book series.
Sheela Chari is the author of the Edgar-nominated middle grade mystery Vanished, the book that switched her from pantser to outliner.
Stacey R. Campbell is the author of Hush; her debut middle grade Arrrgh! is coming in September 2014.
Jennifer Phillips is the author of Girls Research: Amazing Tales of Female Scientists, for grades 4 through 6.
Christina Wilsdon has written many nonfiction books, including the middle grade For Horse Crazy Girls Only.

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Making it Through the Murky Middle

By on November 13, 2013   /   Book Lists  

bikers_croppedOh, middle problems! You know what I mean: When you are stuck in the middle between two feuding friends. Or half way up the hill you’re pedaling. Or struggling to swallow the mouthful of meatloaf you’re in the middle of choking down.

If you are trying to write a novel, that middle is the place where the cake falls, where the piano slips out of tune, where you put your mittens on and start walking for home.

But don’t give up! Whatever you are in the middle of, there is a way through. It’s all about pacing and adding fun.

A number of years ago, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I set a goal of 25,000 words (a decent children’s book length goal and more realistic than 50,000 for a working mom). I wrote something entirely out of my usual—a fantasy novel—and instead of not showing it to anyone until every sentence was nearly perfect, I let my daughter read each day’s output, as a serial novel. She begged to know what happened next. She kept me focused on story and writing daily for 30 days. It was liberating.

So for all of you out there writing, it’s mid November. Are you stuck in the murky middle? Here are a few things that may help:

  • Power through. By writing every day or at least three to five days a week, you remain in your story more. You won’t have to waste time rereading to remember where you left off.
  • Raise the stakes. If your interest is flagging, do something outrageous to your main character. Add a car crash! A fire! A ghost! Make your character run away. Lose the one thing she wants. Or get the one thing he wanted—only to find it’s not what he hoped.
  • Revise later. Don’t get caught up in lyrical prose—now is the time to tell a story. If you can get down the bones of a story, you can redo language and scenes in the second and third drafts.
  • Write out of order. Be zany! No one said you had to write the middle after the beginning. Write the end. Maybe you will then see a path from the first chapter to the last.
  • Community matters. Relying on other people—even virtual ones—to egg you on is a fun way to stay committed. Enlisting a reader will keep you going.

Whatever you produce by Nov. 30, just remember that the best thing you are doing is exercising your writing muscle. Writing is work, and the process of putting one word in front of another is just like pedaling up a hill. You have to keep huffing. You can’t stop in the middle and not reach the top or roll back down. Where you are going is up.

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