Plateaus

Plateau: [figurative noun use] a state of little or no change following a period of activity or progress.

This is what I faced coming into this week. I'd given my heroine this dark moment (although not THE black moment) and all this bad stuff had happened, and then b l a h. It was like somewhat cut the power cord to my book. I knew where I needed her to go, and even had some of the scenes written from that section. But how on EARTH to get her there? I aldo needed some time to pass (few months) and I toyed with how to do that and not lose pace.

Thankfully, with help from my crit partner and lots of prayer, I stepped off my plateau late last night. I only got 3 pages written...but I have my direction again. So I guess you know what I'll be doing tonight when I get home. :)

Q4U: How many of you have struggled with a plateau? What did you do to get off it?

Treatment Tuesday - Amnesia

Today's assessment is for Ralene: "My character suffered from a head injury and has amnesia (not sure if they have names for the different types, but this one she's lost her memories, but retains knowledge of basics...how to eat, how to walk, etc). Her memory will return by the end of the novel, but from my understanding, it typically returns a little bit at a time. What would that be like? How would the character feel/react? Is it like a bunch of memories at once or one over and over for awhile until things just start clicking?"

First off, amnesia is actually diagnosed by a trained medical professional (unless it falls under dissociative amnesia, which your heroine's does not). I'm not a medical professional, but I do know a little bit about amnesia. There are various types, and the one you are describing is called post-traumatic (or just traumatic) amnesia, following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Sounds like your character will suffer retrograde amnesia (inability to recall information prior to the injury - you will want to establish some sort of cut off here...typically traumatic retrograde amnesia is such that the person doesn't remember what happened shortly before the injury (hours or days).

As for the return of the memory, the sky is the limit, Ralene. Just about any scenario you cook up could be feasible. It could be a series of the same recurring memory, it could be little flashes of an event in the past that resembles something currently being experienced (deja vu), it could be dream sequences, it could be all at once, it could be chunks. So just let it rip.

What I wanted to talk the most about is the psychological impact of amnesia. It will be important for you to include in your manuscript the character's embarrassment or stress over not being able to remember her past. She could get angry at her predicament, overwhelmed by people trying to "reintroduce" themselves to her, put off/freaked out at how overly familiar some people are with her who she doesn't "know," or in effect meets for the "first time." She should grieve the loss of these memories her past is full of, yet she doesn't remember.

Thanks for emailing, Ralene. Hope this helps out some.

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist@hotmail.com.

Titles

I'm curious how many of you have trouble with titles? Do they allude you? Do you have a hard time summing up your book with one phrase, or do you not bother with trying to make the two line up that way?

I've found my problem with novel titles is coming up with too many. James Scott Bell wrote in his book Plot & Structure about different ways to come up with new, fresh plot material. One of the ways, interestingly enough, was to come up with the title first. I was surprised, as I have about two pages in my "idea notebook" fully dedicated to titles. My personal preference is play on words.

Bell says you can think of a title that will set your mind "zooming, looking for a story." He suggests looking at poetry, the Bible and quotation books (like Bartlett's) for ideas of titles. For my current WIP, I went with a line from Darrell Evans' song "Trading My Sorrows," although I struggled between Blessed Beyond the Curse and Ward of the Heart (which was a play on the phrase "ward of the court," but I didn't think anyone would get that who wasn't in social service circles).

Q4U: How do you approach titles? Do they come first? Last? Or do they come at all?

New Blog Signature

Okay...this whole signature thing had to be the absolute hardest thing I've had to do to give my blog some personality. I got the idea off a fellow writer's blog, but couldn't get her link to work, so I Googled "blog signatures" and that sent me to www.wordle.net, which was fascinating and took entirely too much of my time.

But for those of you who might want to do something similar, here are the instructions: After creating your Wordle image (or if you can get mylivesignature.com to work, then more power to you), copy the code at the bottom of your image and then go to your dashboard/settings/formatting and paste it into the post template box. Then you have to play around with it to get the image centered and be able to type above it...but I really like the end result. What do ya'll think?

Delete It

DELETE [verb]: to remove or obliterate (written or printer matter), especially by drawing a line through it or marking it with a delete sign.

I've posted about this before, but once again I'm struck by how difficult this can be. Oftentimes I write like I talk, which includes a lot of additional words like "just" or "that." These words aren't needed on the page. DELETE. I use lots of -ly adverbs, or I used to...now I'm limiting myself to only truly amazing ones that add to the prose. DELETE. Then I wrote just two days ago about respecting readers and not giving them too much information that they either already would know or to leave some things to their imagination. DELETE. Again.

I guess it's a good thing I'm learning this now, as I'm sure if I ever am lucky enough to attract an agent's or editor's attention, I'll have to DELETE big time. I recently held an email conversation of sorts with a pubbed author who was going to have to DELETE major portions of a book that was bought out in advance because the publisher didn't like the finished product. Either DELETE or buy back the book or write two more books to make up for it. Whoa.

I'm glad I'm honing this skill. You should be, too. Question: have you had to DELETE anything recently that was hard to do?

Thursday Therapeutic Thought

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Jesus (John 16:33b)

Grief is something everyone experiences, so therefore is a topic for writers to fully understand if we hope to convey our characters' grief in a realistic way readers can relate to. I'll be starting a two-part series on grief today, focusing on the multi-dimensional aspects of grief today and the stages of grief next Thursday.

I'd like to start with two main classifications of grief a person can experience. The first is physical. This means tangible loss, like losing a loved one, getting a car stolen or your house burning down. The second classification is symbolic. These are abstract losses like getting a divorce or being demoted at work.

To quote Therese Rando, "No matter what, loss always results in a deprivation of some kind." (p. 13, How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies).

Unpleasant losses are usually recognized as such, and therefore seem to be deserving of grief. These are the losses that are easy to write about. We've all been there, losing someone or something important to us. So we can pen these experiences into a novel without batting an eye. But what about losses resulting from what others would consider a positive event? Oftentimes these go either unrecognized or ungrieved or both. So lets camp out here for a bit.

When a couple has a child, they experience a relative loss of independence, increased responsibility, and decreased spontaneity. (Ask any couple with an infant if you don't believe me.) But having a child is positive, right? Still, these are symbolic losses the couple faces which might bring them to my office.

A child leaving home for college is positive, meaning the child has acheived a level of competency on his own. But this creates "empty nest" for the parent, a loss that needs to be grieved (in real life AND in our books!). When a person terminates therapy, this is considered positive because they have achieved their goals. But it's often sad, a loss of an hour a week with someone you've grown accustomed to, who knows you better than many others in your life. This is a loss...a deprivation.

Also important to keep in mind as we write about our characters' losses are "secondary losses." These are sneaky, often creeping up on us before we can identify them or be aware of their impact. Secondary losses can sometimes cause more impact in the long run than the initial loss. Consider a change in geography or alteration in family in-law relationships after a spouse's death. What about a loss of status in the community after a child's criminal conviction? Rando mentions a woman losing a breast to breast cancer and includes the following list of secondary losses, all of which need to be mourned on some level: loss of independence and control being in a patient role, loss of automony, loss of predictability, loss of boldily functions, body parts, productivity, pleasure, identify, intimacy, social contacts, self-esteem, mobility...the list could go on and on.

Question for You: Are there parts to your current manuscript you might should rework in light of secondary losses and losses that occur as a result of something most everyone would perceive as "positive"? How can considering grief as multi-dimensional improve the portrayal of your characters' grief?

Respecting Readers

I'm coming to the conclusion that I must think readers are stupid. This is not intentional, but as I'm writing, I often find myself wanting to clarify something, just for good measure, to make sure that the reader is on the same page as I am. As a reader, when I'm reading a book, I've sometimes felt indignant at an author explaining something that of course I already knew. Yes, I do this all the time!

Thankfully, my crit partner is so great on helping me find the portions of my WIP where I do this so I can take them out. I'll clarify a smug look or smirk that the reader already would understand from the strength of the dialogue or prose. She always writes, "Stronger without" in the track change comment section. And I reread it and totally agree. Sometimes, a little needs to be left to the imagination, as well. It's no fun if the author reveals every nuance the character is thinking.

I guess the old adage of less is more applies here. Every time I write just that tad bit more, it weakens the overall product. I can't tell how many 100s of words here and there I've eliminated because they were unnecessary! Too telling, too redundant...whatever.

Question for you: Have any of you writers experienced this revelation? Not that we think readers are really stupid, but we just want to give them a little nudge in the direction we want them to go rather than the direction the book can take them on their own?