Help! Intervention Needed!

Picture by emdot

I'm almost done with Blessed, but I'm really finding a lot of reluctance in writing this last chapter. I know I'll have lots of revising and cutting and editing to do, so it's not like I'm actually saying goodbye to these characters. But once I finish, there is something so final about it!

Being a therapist, I'm trying to analyze why I have this unwillingness to finish writing Blessed. I know how it's going to end. Every night I tell myself I'm going to finish it, and then I get distracted (purposefully?) playing a widget game on my MacBook, writing a blog post, ANYthing but writing the end of this book!

Likely I need some sort of intervention, since I've been at this juncture for about a week. So I'm asking for writing motivation from this great community of writers! What helps you finish your novels? Why or why don't you have a problem with the end stage of writing the first draft?

Any motivation is appreciated ahead of time! Thanks!

Happy Endings...Or Not

Photo by Ben Sisto

I've been thinking about endings lately. Part of this was prompted by Lady Glamis' post on the Innocent Flower. But most of it is because I'm at the end of my first draft of Blessed.

While I was writing my climax, I was given a really exciting psychological method to view the climax by (I know, vague...but I don't want to give it away to my crit partner who will surely read this post later) that I decided to go with. It is shocking (not vulgar shocking, but just surprising...especially how I did it, I think) and creates anxiety for the reader (at least I had anxiety writing it). But isn't that what "edgy" Christian fiction does? Think Ted Dekker here, people.

I'm also thinking about this new twist from my counselor viewpoint. It's very real, very true to form psychologically. But since it is less-than-100%-perfect for the readers' sensibilities, it made me wonder just what our preference about book endings say about US as readers. Do perpetually happy people shut a book that doesn't end in marriage in disgust? Do those among us who are more "dark" in our outlook shut a book in disgust if it does? Just curious.

Of course, my genre is romance. And people typically pick up a romance book for one reason: the romance. All the different takes on how boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again thrills that typical reader. Which leads to my question for you.

Q4U: How many of you romance readers have to have the superbly happy ending? The picket fence? Yappy dog? Are you okay with just a general nudge that that could happen? Or do you need it in black and white (either on paper or quite literally in a black tux and white wedding gown)? Do all the strings in the book have to be tied neatly, or can one of them be tied disastrously?

Hee hee...I'm laughing. My crit partner is going to be going insane with questions! So is Sue.

[deviant, evil laughter]

Passing Time in a WIP

Photo by ToniVC

I have a question to ask some of you. How do you pass time in your books? (I'm not talking about when you sit down with a good book and look up hours later to discover it's dark and you're starving.) I'm talking about in your WIPs...when you need time to pass. There are several reasons for this, like giving the hero/heroin feasible time to fall in love or to get to a certain month in the calendar where a national or local event is usually held.

This was the dilemma I was faced with in Blessed Beyond the Curse. National Foster Care Appreciation Month is in May (this isn't really something I wanted to take artistic license with). My book starts out in September. And the climactic scene of the second act (if you don't know what I'm talking about...I suggest Jeff Gerke's How to Find Your Story) ends right before Halloween! Argh!

My crit buddy and I both were impressed with how Stephenie Meyer passed time in the Twilight series when Edward leaves Bella by just typing the names of the month on each page to show all the time they spent apart. That was a really creative idea.

But I ended up jumping to about seven different scenes over the course of the 6 months, and I took the opportunity to give my heroine her spiritual turning point as well as show some internal and external healing elements. And of course, the hero realizes he's in love. So that was kinda fun. But it was HARD!!

Q4U: How do you pass time in your novels? Do you have some sort of tried and true method you might want to share with the rest of us?

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?

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?

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?

Scene Heartbeat Stopped - AED Needed!

So, over the weekend, I really worked hard on several chapters, exceeding my personal goals for those days. Which was great. I was working along, typing away, feeling the heartbeat of the scene like I felt my own.

Then it just stopped. I backed up, re-read what I wrote, trying to see how I could use the a literary Automatic Electronic Defibrillator (AED) to restart the heartbeat again. Again, much the same. The heartbeat was steady, sure...and then FLATLINED.

So, like any regular Jane who happens upon someone passed out and not breathing, I PANICKED. I emailed my crit partner. "Help!" I tried to tell my husband (this didn't help at all). I re-wrote variations of the end of the scene, but none of those helped me out, either. Whoa. My scene is D Y I N G.

After a phone call with my crit buddy today, I'm hoping we both can revive it, if it hasn't been too long since the last heartbeat. Wouldn't want some deranged scene from lack of oxygen or something. :) I'll have to let you know how it goes later.

Any of you have this happen recently? Not recently? Did your scene survive?

Inspiration

Inspiration for writers is a fickle thing, I think. I get some of my absolutely best ideas when I'm not even trying to think about the. Like that last time this happened to me, I was outside walking the baby and talking to her about my WIP (b/c she's obviously very interested). Then again, today I was jogging and thought up a great idea for a plot! It has both the elements of stories I'm most interested in: romance and therapy!

Then I got to thinking if I've pigeonholed myself with these two elements. My current WIP is a suspense, but the ideas I have floating around in my head (which I'll write down later on tonight before bed in my idea journal) don't necessarily have to do with suspense - although that element could be worked in, I suppose. I kind of did that with my current WIP.

Anyway...cheers to the unexpected, un-sought-after ideas that Providence just springs upon you.

How To Find Your Story

Jeff Gerke wrote this amazing book, How To Find Your Story. My crit partner and I both bought it (it's an ebook, so you just download it right to your computer from this website) and we've been planning out our WIPs using the worksheet tool that he provides. This book is for writers who essentially are "character-first novelists," that is, you just get a character stuck in your head and you decide to write a story about him or her.

In contrast is the plot-first novelist, where the twists and turns are already apparent usually before the characters who will live through them are. (Jeff also wrote a book for these type writers called Character Creation for the Plot-First Novelist, available at the above website in a bundle with How to Find Your Story.)

So we just got off the phone with each other, talking about our characters and what pitfalls and adventures we have in store for them, using terminology that we both knew (like escalating arms race, moment of truth, character knot, etc.). I just can't say enough about the book. I feel like now (after reading the book and especially after bouncing ideas off my crit partner), I have a DIRECTION!!! And knowing that is the harder part of the journey of writing a book, to me. My characters aren't swimming around anymore, but heading somewhere, and that's exciting!

Now I just have to find the time to actually write this good stuff. :)

Mary DeMuth critique

Author Mary DeMuth does a free critique per week on her blog, So You Want To Be Published. This week, she critiqued the synopsis of my current WIP. You can read the post here.

I was almost embarrassed at how much better the re-write sounded! But, that's why Mary DeMuth is published, and I am not. :) Unfortunately for me, after I sent her the synopsis, I got a fabulous crit partner through ACFW who really helped me become more aware of my cliches. I really had a tendency to write using them. I find that the cliche sticks out in my head now, though, and I search for a more unique way to express what the cliche expresses. This can take several minutes for me!

Anyway...but thanks to Mary for pointing out a much better way to describe the plot of my book. Less passive voice and less cliches (and less run-on sentences, which was the result of my run-in with the Snowflake Method that indicated I should have a synopsis in about 5 sentences...see post here).

Mary Connealy Crit

I put the opening couple of lines from my current WIP on the blog, So You Want To Be Published, where guest blogger Mary Connealy was giving some tips on the writing craft. She asked for some openings, so I sent mine. She responded and said it was pretty strong, and that she was interested in reading more. She gave me some ideas about going into a deep POV. You can find the post here.

Gotta love free crits from published authors. :)

Romantic Rush

I just finished the first true romantic scene in my current WIP, and my heart was beating so fast as I got so caught up in it! Truly, that's one of my favorite scenes to write. I can just imagine it all in my head, and it just flows onto the page. What a great night!

My husband even helped out with the baby a lot more than usual today so that I could write uninterrupted (at least, most of the time). That helped a lot...as there is nothing worse than having to stop your writing genius in the middle of some good stuff! :)

So...kudos to me...and to my newly revised word count. Off to bed...much later than I should be for a Saturday night...

Pitch Rewrite

Here is my rewritten elevator pitch to an agent:

My WIP is a contemporary romantic suspense about a foster care social worker suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to getting raped a few weeks before her wedding date. She has to quit the job she loves because she is paralyzed by fear and anxiety, and her fiance - the director of the agnecy she works for - breaks off their engagement. After two years of therapy, she's given the go-ahead to work in social services again, but she has a panic attack associated with her PTSD while in the line of duty which raises questions about her competency. A handsome attorney with a client on her caseload is keeping tabs on her, which unsettles her because he reminds her so much of her ex-fiance. My heroine wants to learn to trust her fellow man again and prove to others and to herself that she can carry out her responsibilities and reclaim her life back from her mental disorder. In the process, she embraces her faith and femininity once more, but can her newfound strength withstand her biggest fear of being attacked again?

If any agents happen to be reading...I'll be at the ACFW conference this September! Look for me in the elevators or hallways. :)