Category Archives: Ninestar Press author Brenda Murphy

Structure: the Bones of Your Story

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This month’s blog post covers the first part of the revision and editing process after you have completed your rough draft I wrote about last month. If you missed that post, here is the link for it: https://blog.writingwhiledistracted.com/?p=2289

Revisions and editing are what I consider the fun part of writing. You are about to take your wobbly messy first draft and shape it into something that resembles a novel. For a lot of people who struggle with distraction issues and executive function, crafting the structure of our novels is one of the most difficult parts of writing, because every scene has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end in order to tell a coherent story.

Our brains don’t always work that way. Our brains are really good a filling in the blanks in our stories in our minds but those thoughts do not always make it to the page.

It is often what makes many people with distraction issues struggle with basic editing. Either we read fast and skip over what is not there, or we get distracted during reading and miss that our story is incoherent. In order to meet story telling conventions and create a novel that has a clear beginning, middle, and an ending that makes sense we need a simple way to look at our story overall, a helicopter view of our novel.

The best way I have found to do this is objectively to create a reverse outline from your manuscript.  In creating a reverse outline, you work from your manuscript as it is and create a list of scenes in each chapter. As with anything you are outlining you can make it as brief as detailed as you like. The minimal things that need to be in the outline for each scene are

  • The setting, where does the scene take place?
  • Who is in the scene?
  • What point of view is the scent told from?
  • What is the point of the scene? What occurs to move the story forward, or show character?

Ideally a scene will both move the story forward and show the reader character development.
Here is an example: Exterior of a burned building. Fire inspector Mel is conducting an interview with a businessman who doesn’t want to talk to her and is acting rude/weird/anxious. Mel ignores his rudeness and is kind. The man relaxes and reveals he upset because he is afraid he will be exposed as having an affair as his car has been blocked in by the fire equipment and he will be very late getting home.

When you are finished with the outline, read back through it. It will become clear if you have left things out, or if you have scenes that don’t move the story along or show character development.  If a scene does not meet those requirements, no matter how much you love it the scene needs to go or to be incorporated into another scene. Wherever possible have a scene do both things, it will really tighten up your writing.

The point of a reverse outline is you should be able to read through it and understand a short coherent version of your story.  A reverse outline will also demonstrate if your chapter lengths are correct for the pacing of the story. If you have one chapter that is sixteen scenes long and the other chapters that are one scene long, you might need to configure those chapters to even out the pacing of the story. Think of a chapter as break in the story for your readers to consider what has already occurred and what might happen next.  There is nothing wrong with a one scene chapter if it fits the novel. If it is a very long scene or if it’s a pivotal scene and you want to set it apart, you can decide where you want your scenes in your book. Sometimes if my story is very broken I will take my reverse outline and transfer it to 3×5 cards.

It is not my normal practice but if my structure majorly flawed, I need a strong visual to be able to sort it I will.  Folks with distraction issues and other mental health issues that affect our executive functions often struggle with organization. Our brains may organize something in a way that makes no sense to anybody else, but it makes sense to us. The problem with this is if you’re writing a story you hope will be read and understood by more people than just you, you need to take the time to make sure your story makes sense.  It is the very first step in organizing a rough draft.

The two parts of story structure you want to look at are plot, the things that happen in your story, and character arcs, the changes your character undergoes because of the things that happen in the story.  As much as you want to make sure the plot of your story makes sense you want make sure you show your character’s development because your character should change over the course of the story. Even your character does not change their behavior, showing they had the chance to change and turned away from it can be just as compelling.  The mantra of writers is show don’t tell and that can be the hardest thing for new writers to grasp. Sandra Gerth, aka Jae has a fantastic book about showing versus telling in writing and I recommend it if you are struggling to understand how to do it.  https://www.amazon.com/Show-Dont-Tell-descriptions-characters-ebook/dp/B01LXFJ0AC/

Your characters journey should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some people may argue that if you’re a genre fiction writer and you’re writing the same character over again, for example if you have a detective series or some kind of thriller series or any kind of series where you are working with the same set of characters and they have different adventures over the course of the series it’s not necessary.

I would submit having your character change, even in small ways over the course of your series is going to make your books much more entertaining and much more readable. As much as we appreciate characters who are always the same as there is some comfort in familiar and knowing a character, as a reader you can’t wait to see how they will behave in a new story, in a new setting, and with a new challenge,  submit stories that bring the same character, but have them change over the course of the series are infinitely more readable and addicting.

That’s my opinion, your mileage may vary, but if you have an opportunity to have your characters change over the course of story do it.

If you’re writing standalone books, character arcs are the heart of your story so making sure you have appropriate scenes to show the development of the character, and their internal and external struggles is a vital part of story structure and compelling story telling.

I wrote about prewriting here: https://blog.writingwhiledistracted.com/?p=2274 and how important it is to build a solid foundation for your story. If you unsure about how your character would behave in a scene, go back to your prewriting and your character worksheets and compare them with your reverse outline. Has your character changed? At what cost?

            Make sure you have scenes that demonstrate what they have to sacrifice to attain their goals. Sacrifice is what drives story whether it’s an internal such as giving up or modifying their self-image, or an external sacrifice, such as forgoing monetary rewards by not developing land down by the marsh the character had planned to build luxury condos on that their love interest is working hard to protect as a nature preserve for waterfowl.

            Character growth and development draws readers in. This the point in the revision process where you fix any issues and tweak the scenes to demonstrate those changes and plot points that are key to understanding your story. This is when you fix all the broken issues in your story so take your time here, especially if like me you work from a loose outline and write a discovery draft, if you’re a pantser and don’t work from any outline, you need to make sure you have developed the story and character arcs in a way that makes sense and your characters stay in character.

Nothings worse than reading a book and all of a sudden there’s some wacky change in a character. If you’re like me you raise an eyebrow and say, sometimes say out loud, “What the heck? Why would she do that?” Sometimes several chapters later some bit of character history comes to light that explains why the characters behavior, but in the worst case the reader is left wondering, ‘did I miss something?” which does not lead to an enjoyable reading experience. It can lead to folks not finishing the story because as an author have lost them by your character behaving out of character without explanation.

This your opportunity to correct any major issues with your novel, because if you have to fix problems later, when you get your copy edits back from your editor, or your beta reader, and they have commented “What the heck? Why did she do this?”  It’s going to take a lot more work at that point in the book writing process versus taking the time to restructure and add in scenes to make you characters behavior and your story make sense.

Another tool that you can use for examining your structure is to listen to your book. There are ways that you can have Microsoft Word and other Word processing programs read your work back to you. If you’re someone who has with audio processing or needs a different method of work for whatever reason listen to your story and make notes of what needs to be corrected in your scenes.

            I usually listen to my work, either reading it out loud or having my word processor read my story to me when I’m working on dialogue, but there is no reason why you can’t use the same process to reverse outline your story. Use whatever method works for you.

            Many neurospicy folks become overwhelmed and disheartened when they begin the revision process. They remember the struggle it was to complete the manuscript, look at all the work they have done, and can’t imagine doing more. Take the same approach to revising a novel as you did when writing it.

Be consistent, about the time you spend, focus on one project until you get it done, and don’t quit. When you run across those things that don’t make sense, where you’ve got things out of order or jumbled don’t be discouraged, make notes and then act.

For folks with distraction issues and people with poor executive function, this will be the hardest part of the writing process.  Organizing our thoughts and our words in a correct and orderly fashion is excruciating at times. The best thing you can do for yourself is take your time, work in short bits of time, and be kind to yourself.

Take the time to create a reverse outline, it will make your efforts so much easier because you will have your story laid out in front of you, you will know where you’re going with the story, why you wrote the scenes you did. If you question why you had your character behave in a certain way, go back and read your pre-writing, read your character worksheets, look at whatever notes you made about your characters until you figure it out.

This will work for both character driven stories and a plot driven stories.  Even plot driven stories are still about character because we read to connect with other ideas, and other people. We imagine ourselves in a different world. We read to discover how characters are going to handle whatever situations they face in the book.

It is entertaining, it keeps readers turning pages even in a plot driven story where you are trying to defeat the big bad, or find the bomb before it goes off, the characters who are trying to find the bomb are still people. They’re going to have things happen to them and they’re going to change over the course of trying to find the bomb before it goes off and you should keep this in mind while working on your novel structure.

If you are writing genre fiction this is the time to make sure you are meeting genre expectations. If you are writing a mystery make sure you have clues scattered in your novel so your readers can solve the crime with your detective, or if you are writing a thriller that you are maintaining tension throughout the story. If you are writing romance be sure your scenes convince your reader The couple in your story belong together no matter what.

So, if you are at the starting line with revising and editing your novel, overwhelmed and freaking out, or if you have been revising and feel stuck, please try creating a reverse outline by hand or listen to your draft and take notes paying attention to structure and character development.  Once your structure is nailed down, you can go back and do what I call the window dressing, which is where you work on word choice, description, and dialog. That will be the subject of a future of a future blog post until then keep writing.

Revisions and Editing aka The Fun Part

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Revisions and editing are to me, the fun part of writing. As giddy as I am writing my first draft, not caring if it will meld together at the end, I am even more stoked to start revisions. Revisions are the time to sort all the things that were unclear in the draft, find ways to shine up the prose so it reflects and shows what you want to communicate.

For folks who edit as they write this list and post will most likely not make sense or will seem unnecessary or redundant. However, if you are like me and start your writing process with a fast rough as hell draft, this will post will provide insight on to how to organize the revision and editing process. As someone who struggles with executive function having a list and guidelines helps me to stay on task and not overlook important items.

In my workflow revisions and editing are different mindsets. Revisions are when I take a hard look at story structure, pacing, character arcs, story continuity, and attending to genre conventions, i.e.  Is the crime solved? Is the bad person caught before the bad thing happens? Does the romance hit its beats? etc. During revisions I also attend to all of the notes I made to myself while drafting about items that required research. Revisions are the heart of creating the story, it is the opportunity to focus on telling the story you want to tell in the way you want to tell it.

Editing is when I correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, review  language, word choice, replace overused words, repetitive phrases and refine my prose. Editing is also when I examine dialogue, scene descriptions, character descriptions, and continuity. Did you see that continuity is in there twice? That is because it is so easy to miss.

 To recap the process, I use to get my rough as hell draft to a finished product to send to an editor, publisher, or out on submission is:

  1. Round1: Revisions: structure, pacing, character arcs, genre conventions, continuity, and sorting items that require research.
  2. Round 2: Language: word choice, refining prose, pacing, dialogue, scene descriptions, character descriptions, continuity.
  3. Round 3: Proofing: Grammar, spelling, punctuation, copy edits, line edits formatting for submission or publication. Copy edits, line edits.
  4. Round 4: Final proofing read through before submission or publishing.

This is the routine I follow for every novel, novella, and short story I have ever written for submission and publication in order to increase my chances of being accepted for publication and in the case of indie publishing having a product I am proud to put my name on. Taking the time to ensure that your work is edited to the best of your ability is key to increasing your chances of your work being read and accepted. A poorly edited work will be an auto rejection. It won’t matter if you have written an outstanding novel if it is riddled with errors and misspellings. This goes for indie published folks too. I have stopped reading more than one promising story because the writer could not be bothered to attend to grammar and spelling. No manuscript is without errors, but taking the time to strive for as error free as possible is not a waste of your time.

At this point you may be wondering where editors and beta readers fit into this process.  Developmental editors vary in what services they provide. Jane Friedman has a great article on hiring a developmental editor here (https://janefriedman.com/before-you-hire-a-developmental-editor-what-you-need-to-know/) Her newsletter is one of my favorites and always contains helpful information and links. The definitions for what is expected of copy editors, line editors, and proof-readers are for the most part straightforward.  Copyeditors focus on formatting, spelling, punctuation, grammar. Line editors are concerned flow, meaning, sentence structure, and rhythm of language. Proofreaders are tasked with catching any formatting and errors in the final copy before the work is published.

My process with beta readers is to send them the draft after revisions and language edits, and right before copy edits.  Why? Because for me that is when I would be able to fix any problems I overlooked in Rounds 1 and 2 without tearing the book apart.  I also want them to have something that most resembles a proper book. I know other folks who send their beta readers  first drafts, and those who work with beta readers while drafting. As with most things in writing, you will find what works for you. It should also be clear to you that having beta readers is not required. Many folks work without beta readers.

I don’t always work with beta readers. If I am submitting to a publisher I most often do not work with a beta reader. For my indie published work I always work with beta readers.  Some people work with them on every story, some people never work with them. The decision to work with beta readers is a personal one, as is finding a beta reader you trust to give you honest feedback. I treasure the beta readers I work with, I appreciate their generous surrender of their time and energy to help me with book production.

Finally, I know that some of you are looking at the list of rounds of editing above and freaking out. It is a lot. I get it. But it is not impossible, You can to learn how to do be mindful of all the things that go in to producing a novel. Do not be discouraged. There are tons of books and sources to help you learn how to self-edit, including the next series of article on this blog. Over the next six months or there will be posts that will focus on different aspects of revisions and editing before we get back to the book writing process as a whole. I’ll offer my best insights for how to organize each step and will include book recommendation and resources.

Until next time,

Happy writing!

First draft what it is and what it Isn’t

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Welcome to step four of writing a book. If you missed the other posts in the series you can find the beginning here https://blog.writingwhiledistracted.com/?p=2263 .

Your first draft is just that, it is a draft. It is not a final product. It is not something you want to show everybody. It’s not anything more than you telling yourself the story you have had in your head for the first time.

As it is a first draft it is allowed to be messy, to be absolutely ridiculous and poorly worded. Maybe it does not flow. Maybe it does not make sense. Maybe your dialogue is stilted. Maybe you feel like a kid with a crayon could do a lot better. And it is okay because the entire point of a first draft is to get your hot mess of a story onto paper or into your computer or wherever you do your first draft.

Many people get stuck and never finish writing their book because they try to edit their first draft WHILE THEY ARE WRITING IT and never progress beyond the first twenty pages. I know people who have edited their first chapter at least two hundred thirty times. They’re the same people who have been writing the same book for the last fifteen years and not progressed beyond the first chapter. They have not written a book but they have a hella of a first chapter, never arriving at a finished project. They are also often the people who get a request from an agent based on their first chapter for a full manuscript and then are unable to take advantage of the agents request and lose out on a chance at representation.

 This is makes me sad. Their book, their marvelous book they have in their head is in limbo because they’re stopping themselves. They have this idea they have to get the first chapter perfect before they can move on and they end up stuck in an endless loop.

For some people, editing as you write is how they’re wired and that may apply to you. You may think I don’t know what I’m talking about or, or you might be saying ‘oh yeah sure that’s fine for you, but I could never move on until I know the chapter/scene/paragraph is perfect’.  It is my observation that people who say ‘I could never’ often ‘I could never’ themselves into never finishing a book. Do not ‘I could never’ yourself into a hellscape of trying to perfect something that is not complete. See the manuscript as a whole, otherwise it is like trying to frost a half baked cake.

If you get in your own way trying to make your work perfect as you go along you will never finish. Now are some folks are able to make a book perfect as they go along. They finish their manuscripts. They are rare and not the typical writer. Most professional writers I know or have known, the people who have written multiple books, the ones who have had careers that lasted until they decided they were done with writing or died whichever came first, those people do not try to make their writing perfect in their first draft. 

Some folks, as part of their writing practice start by editing and tightening up the last couple of paragraphs from the previous work session before they move on. If you decide to do this, be aware how you are spending your writing time. For many people tightening up the last couple of paragraphs turns into an all-day editing session. Revisions and editing are not drafting. Revision and editing are different skill set and brain activity than the creativity involved in writing a first draft.

If you are struggling to write a book, or finish a book, and finish is the keyword here, you have to let go of perfection. You have to be satisfied with having written your project warts and all, as a draft and be confident you can fix it later. As the very famous bit of advice attributed to Nora Roberts goes, you cannot edit a blank page. You cannot expect yourself to turn out perfect prose the first time you create a story. It is why schools teach you to write a first draft and then go back and revise it. All those language arts teachers and professors weren’t talking out their asses. It was actually good advice.

FINISH YOUR DRAFT. CELEBRATE. Seriously, celebrate your accomplishment. Set your draft aside for a week, or two weeks, or six weeks, while you start work on another project or take a vacation or whatever, just make sure you give the draft time to mellow and yourself time to come back to it with a new perspective. Steven King says his magic number for letting a draft mellow is six weeks. I typically wait about two or three weeks to start revisions because if I wait longer I lose the energy/spirit/feelings I had when I wrote the book. Start with what feels right for you.

Now we have discussed the philosophical/psychological part of writing a first draft, it is time for the nuts and bolts. My advice is to start with your first scene card, or the first scene in your outline. If you haven’t done your scene cards and if you haven’t created some sort of your outline, please go back and read this blog post about outlining for the outline impaired.  https://blog.writingwhiledistracted.com/?p=2274 . The point of outlining and prewriting is to decrease the amount of decision making while writing so you can tell your story and to hopefully prevent you from writing yourself into a corner.

To start writing, pick up the first card, go to your document or open your notebook and write. If you finish the scene, move on to the next one until you are out of time or words. I use Scrivener so I’m able to divide my scenes into folders for each chapter. You could do the same thing with Microsoft Word. There are writers who set up their projects that way. I am not a Microsoft Word expert so I can’t tell you how to do it but if you are more comfortable writing in Word, set yourself up with files, documents, folders, chapter folders however the hell you want to do it. If you just want to write it like one giant ass document that is fine too. Do whatever works for you. If you are pencil/pen and paper person get your notepads or notebook out, sharpen your pencils and get started.

A question I’m asked is “How much do you have to write each day to write a book? Often followed by “How often much do you write each day to produce as many books as you do in a year?” My answer varies because my life varies. I have children at home. I have older parents who I often times need to care for. There are seasons in life. When my kids are off school in the summertime I want to go have fun and play. I love to be in my garden. I don’t want to stay inside. How much you have to write to a write book is going to depend on three things

1. Where you are in your life?

2. How much time do you have to dedicate to writing?

3. How long is your project is projected to be?

 I write about a thousand words a day. It ends up being about four pages double spaced with 12-point typeface. Sometimes I write more, sometimes I write less but it averages out to about 1000 words five days a week. I don’t work on the weekends because my brain needs to cool off and I want to spend time with my family. when I come back to the page on Monday I’m fresh and ready to work. The key to production is consistency. When I am drafting those one thousand words are a nonnegotiable task. No matter what else is going on, I get my words in.

There are those folks who write every day and it is awesome for them. Some people write all day on Saturdays and Sundays because during the week they work fulltime jobs with long hours and they’re not able to write on days they work. When I worked twelve-hour hospital shifts and had an hour drive on either end, there was no way in hell I was going to come home and write anything. I wrote on my days off and wrote as much as I could on those days.

When my children were toddlers and I wrote in fifteen-minute bursts because it was all the time I had. Whatever I wrote in fifteen minutes was it. Sometimes I had a couple of those fifteen-minute sessions a day. If I managed five hundred words a day I was super excited, if I only managed one hundred words I was fine with it, because all the words add up.

Some folks do not like measuring their progress with word counts or page counts or minutes spent writing because it stresses them out. I understand increasing your stress is counterproductive to writing/creating but you do need to find a way to track your progress. If you don’t track your progress it is too easy to give up because you feel like you are not getting anywhere. It is so important to have a visual reminder of your progress. It can be so encouraging.

On those days when the words are hard  to write you can always look at what you have accomplished and let that inspire you to move the needle even it is just a tick. Every word you write gets you closer to “The End”.  I love Scrivener for a lot of reasons but seeing the progress bar move on a project keeps me coming back because I can see the end and how far I have come.

A word of warning: Do not compare your word counts/page counts/number of publications in a year to anyone else’s numbers. I have friends who crank out six thousand words a day. Some who write fifty a day. Some who write four books a year. It does not matter! The only person’s word counts/page counts/number of publications you need to worry about is your own. You do you. No one else’s situation is the same as yours, no one else’s life is the same. Work to you own capacity.

The next thing at will help you with finishing your manuscript is to follow your outline as much as you can. If something bubbles up while you are writing and you want to go in a different direction, you’re allowed to because it is your story. If you get to the middle of your book and you think ‘Oh hell this outline makes no damn sense.’ Change it. But take the time to add some scene cards and adjust your outline to handle the changes. This is so you don’t wander off on a side quest and end up not finishing your draft because you have overwhelmed yourself with changes and now you have no clue where this story is going.

It is okay to change your story in the middle of it. It is not okay to abandon a story. If you abandon a story because it gets hard to write you are never going to finish a book. It sounds harsh and maybe you think I’m a jerk to say it but if you quit when writing gets hard, you’re not going to finish a manuscript unless you figure out why the writing is hard.

Take time to examine why you want to quit the story. Is it hard because you’re writing about something really tender? Did your last book do really well and now you are afraid this book will not be as good? Did you last book get harsh reviews and you’re afraid to try again? Is your story bringing up all kinds of feelings you don’t want to deal with? Are you afraid you will make folks angry? Or hurt their feelings? Are you embarrassed by what you’re writing? Get a separate notebook out and examine your feelings. Mine your reasons for emotions, dig deep and examine your resistance to finishing your story. Use the information to break through your creative block.

If you are struggling with writer’s block, write down why you don’t want to write, why you can’t write and what’s keeping you from writing. Go back through your list of what is stopping you and solve/address them one at a time. If you are struggling with creative block, I have a free workbook for you and I’m going to leave the link for it here: https://BookHip.com/XRMANSQ .

If you’re struggling, if you’re stuck, if you have creative block, please go work through the workbook and then come back to your story. There is always a way out of block. It might take time but breaking creative block is possible if you are willing to work through what is stopping you. They can be little things, or they can be big things, but until you know what the things are, you can’t fix them so you can get back to our draft.

Finishing your first draft is essential. Keep going. Finish it. Don’t worry about how long it takes. Don’t worry about the quality of writing, just finish the dang thing. If you run into something you don’t know while writing, put a note to yourself in brackets and just keep writing. For example, if you can’t remember the character’s dog’s name, or if you don’t know if matches existed during the time period in your story, or you haven’t sorted your magic system just put a placeholder there and come back to it.

Do not interrupt your flow to look something up. Flow is a magical state, stay in it as much as you can. You will have time to sort all the thing when you do revisions and edits. For each instance of brackets, you will be able to make a list of everything you need to research and decide but for right now get your story out of your head and into some format so you can edit it.

The only way forward is to finish your draft. It is the biggest stumbling block to writing a book. There are people who can outline for days, there are people who can come up with millions of ideas and they have notebooks filled with ideas and outlines, wonderful, detailed outlines. They have acres of research. And they get stuck trying to write their first draft because they don’t know what to do. They are freaked out by the blank page, the blank screen and the blinking cursor and they freeze.

Much like a jump into cold water there is no easing into a first draft. You have to jump in with both feet. Write the first few words, no matter how much your inner critic tells you your writing is awful and keep going. Don’t look back just keep writing. If it is too hard to start with the first scene start with the second scene. Jump in anywhere you want. You can go back and write the first scene on a different day.

Some writers always write out of order. They can skip around and write different scenes depending on their mood or time that they have to devote to a scene. I can’t flit around to different scenes. My structure falls apart if I don’t follow my scene card list. I get bogged down and it is that much harder to finish my draft.  That does not mean you have to write your scenes in order, but if you haven’t been able to complete a manuscript and your practice has been to writing scenes as they come to you, following some version of an outline may be what you need to finish your draft.

I don’t know what will work for anyone specifically, other than continuing to write until you reach the end of your draft. It does not matter if you get the words down on paper or get them into the computer, the only thing that matters is writing. Not talking about writing, not reading about writing, not dreaming about writing, you have to write to get it done.

Writers write, no matter if they write five words a day or five hundred words a day or five thousand words a day, writers write and it is what you need to do to finish your first draft. Don’t put yourself out of the running by not even starting or worse by trying to perfect your first few chapters of your draft in an endless cycle of rewrites and starts.

A first draft is a mess. It is raw. It is ugly. It is unintentionally comical. Acknowledge it and let go of perfection. A terrible first draft is better than no draft. A terrible first draft can be fixed and you will fix it. Trust yourself. Trust the messiness of the process. Do Not Quit!

When you are finished, set your draft aside and celebrate. You are amazing. You have accomplished what eighty percent of folks say they want to do and never do. Congratulate yourself. Give yourself the biggest celebration you can, go all out. I usually celebrate by making my favorite dinner and having a beverage. Can you hear me cheering for you? You can do this. I believe in you.

 I’ll talk about what to do with your first draft after you have let it mellow a bit in next month’s post “I’ve finished my first draft now what the hell do I do?”

Until next month, Happy Writing

Imposter Syndrome: Five Ways to Fight Back

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 I missed posting last month because July totally got away with me got away from me. Between attending the Golden Crown Literary Society conference, traveling a dear friend’s combination birthday and anniversary party, and visiting my mom, my writing time was limited. I used what time was available to work on my next novel.

Back in June, I promised an article on Imposter Syndrome, a condition that according to some statics affects 70% of the population at one time or another. Imposter Syndrome is that feeling/worry/anxiety that you don’t deserve/belong/ folks will find out you’re a fraud. Imposter Syndrome is insidious and can happen at any time. It can occur in your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life. This post offers five ways to deal with Imposter Syndrome in your creative life. Imposter Syndrome can occur with or without a triggering event.

Has this happened to you? You’re working on your manuscript, are excited to sit down to write, and you open the document. As soon the blank screen pops up, the ugly voice of Imposter Syndrome whispers that you should just quit now. It tells you that you don’t know enough to be. a writer. Your work is banal, boring, stupid worthless. No one cares what you have to say. These phrases or some version of them swirl around in your mind, throttling your creativity.  When Imposter Syndrome grabs you it pokes you in your most sensitive places.

Imposter syndrome will do its best to convince you that you are a terrible writer. It will insist you have no business writing. It will whisper in your ear that you have nothing to say, you’re a fraud, you’re not real. It thrives on shame, and fear. Imposter Syndrome, if left unchecked will convince you that you are not in any way, shape, or form a writer, and you should just save yourself the embarrassment and just quit.

Imposter Syndrome can be devasting to your creative career. It is the root cause of many cases of writer’s block. What can you do to stop that terrible nasty little voice?  Here are five things you can you do when feel uncertain, like you don’t belong, or that you shouldn’t have a seat at the table, that you’re in the wrong place, or that someone else is going to find out that you’re a fraud.

Five Ways to Fight Imposter Syndrome.

  1. Remember who you are. Make a list of things you have accomplished, don’t leave anything out. All those little and big things count, add to the list all the things you can do. Can you swim? Ride a bike? Cook a decent meal? Hang a picture? Are you a wiz at spreadsheets? No matter how routine, acknowledging your abilities can remind you that you are capable and deserving of all the things.
  2. Talk about it. Shame and guilt are big components of Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome lies to us about our worth. It tells us we are taking up space we don’t deserve, that we shouldn’t be where we are and that we are frauds. These are lies. The best way to get past these lies is to talk to people about how you are feeling. A wise therapist once said to me. “Feelings are real but they may not be based on truth or reality.” Take time to examine your feelings and the facts of the situation. Talk with a trusted friend or counselor about Imposter Syndrome.
  3. Don’t beat yourself up. Mistakes happen. Failure is part of learning and growth. If you experience a manuscript rejection, take some time to acknowledge your effort and bravery in submitting your work. Did the editor give you some feedback? Use that to rework your manuscript. Ask a trusted friend for if they would beta read for you. Don’t listen to the voice that says quit. Most folks who are traditionally published experience many rejections before their work is accepted.
  4. Celebrate yourself. Anything can be a win. Did you finish your draft? Complete a word count goal? Hit a consecutive day writing streak? Celebrate that! Use that energy to chase away the negative vibes Imposter Syndrome uses to hold you back.
  5. Talk the talk. Use your inner dialogue to build yourself up. When the gnarly Imposter Syndrome voice starts in, have a set response to its false statements. Flip the script on that jackass.

For Example:

Imposter Syndrome says: “You’re not a writer.”

You: “I write therefore I am a writer.”

Imposter Syndrome says, “No one will ever like what you write.”

You: “I like what I write, and out of all the folks in the universe, someone else besides me will like it too.”

You get the idea. Write down all the negative things that crowd out your positive thoughts and use that to create your own script. I won’t share my personal script because my language gets a little salty when I am chasing Imposter Syndrome out of my head.

I hope that these things will help you to kick Imposter Syndrome to the curb. Try them the next time Imposter Syndrome shows up. Remember, changing our feelings and beliefs about ourselves is hard, but not impossible. Use whatever tools you can to strengthen your belief in yourself. You are a writer. If you needed to hear that from someone other than yourself, here it is: You are a writer, and the world needs for your words.

 until next time,

Brenda

 

Getting Back to It: Tips for Restarting a Writing Project

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How do you get back to writing after a long break? I’ve had to take a break from the blog and my current work in progress because I had two sets of edits that came in and I had to attend to those edits. It’s going to be at least another three weeks before I can get back to it. This is not the first time I’ve had to take long breaks in working on projects because of project conflicts, family events, life, events, or my own state of mind. I have developed a system for how to get back to where you were when you’ve had to put a story aside for a while.

  It’s hard to pick up the threads of your story when you are a pantser or a discovery draft writer.  The techniques work well for people who don’t work from a detailed outline because sometimes you’ll be writing along and you have taken a detour. Your characters have gone off script, and suddenly you’re not sure where your story is going and you need to get back to the initial thread. These techniques are handy for those times when brain fog is dense and you don’t even know where you are in the story or what you’re doing and you feel lost in your own manuscript.

 When you’ve wandered into the weeds one of the first things things you can do when you find yourself in that situation or when you to come back to some thing after having not written or worked on it for for weeks or months is to read through your pre-writing, and by that I mean story notes, character worksheets, notebook scribbles, etc, that you created before you started your project.
Then read through what you’ve written so far and create a reverse outline. A reverse outline is based on what you’ve written. It offers an opportunity to compare the scenes you’ve written with your initial plan.

It also serves as a reminder of what you’ve already accomplished. If you’ve just started something, and you’ve only written a chapter or two just read those couple of chapters. Some people suggest simply  reading the previous chapter or the previous couple of pages of your manuscript. This doesn’t work for me because I don’t work from detailed outline. I work from a scene list and if you also work that way a reverse outline will to show you where you’ve  gone off script.
The other thing you can do, if you feel overwhelmed, or if you don’t want to invest the time reverse outlining takes is to just start writing.  Get yourself geared up to sit down at your desk, open your document or your notebook or legal pad or  however you write and just start writing again.
Embrace the attitude that you can fix any problems in revisions. It does work, but you should plan on taking a bit more time in revisions to make sure you’ve fix any plot holes and that your story structure is sound.  

Not all writing breaks are bad, sometimes If you need to take a break from writing because you’ve written yourself into a corner or your bored with your story or you need to take a mental health break. You’ll be less stressed about not writing if you know there are ways to find your way back to the story.  Trust yourself to get back to work.
Sometimes people take breaks is because of what I call shiny new idea syndrome. Shiny new idea syndrome occurs most often when you get to the hard part of the manuscript and you’re like “oh I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m in the soggy middle and why the f$@k did I ever start this book? I hate it.”
So you put your manuscript aside and you start working on the next shiny thing. The hard truth about this is that the next shiny thing will also get to a hard, sticky part.  My recommendation to you is if you stopped writing something because it became hard to write, is to put it aside for a while.  Take that break. Use it to refuel yourself, to fill your creative well so you can get your brain and your emotions in a place where you can work.
But for the love of all that is good do not start something new while on your break if you already have a pile of unfinished manuscripts. It’s fine to make notes or sketch some ideas down. Collect your ideas in a next shiny thing notebook if you’ve got one of those. Or a document, or whatever way your have to keep track of ideas. I keep a notebook next to my computer so I can write all those ideas down as the bubble up.

Those ideas call to me like sirens, and in order to keep myself from crashing on the rocks of unfinished works, I promise myself that I will start the new shiny thing that once I am finished my current project. 

My best advice is to if you can help it at all is to to not  quit in the middle of a project. To be clear, a pause to attend to other writing business is not the same as abandoning a project.  Another hard truth is nothing ever gets easier as you write.  In  fact, as you get towards the end of the story, trying to tie all the loose threads together and create a satisfying conclusion it is sometimes is exhausting.
Writing  is not easy. Giving people access your imaginary friends and their world, exposing your imagination can be excruciating.  More so if  you’re writing a difficult scene or a difficult topic or when you’re writing middle the of the story arc when you’re torturing your characters so they apprentice their happy ending.

All of that can be really hard to write, but don’t quit. Take a break, and when you come back to your project, try these techniques to  get back to where you were. Or just start again and that’s fine too.

A final word about why folks quit on their manuscripts. Folks quit all the time because they give up, decide writing is  not worth the struggle. And then they beat themselves up about their decision.
 I can’t tell you if it’s worth it or not for you. I know for me, at this point in time even with the advent and rise of all the AI chat programs that will write stories for you and people bragging that they wrote books with it, and all the stress that the discussion has generated, nothing  is ever going to beat a homegrown honest to goodness human creation, because no matter how well we teach the machines they will never truly be us.
Regurgitated rehashed content is not the same as original human stories.  People will tell you there are no new stories. And that may be true but no one else out there can tell a story the way that you can tell a story.  So please don’t quit for good.  Give yourself a break if you need one.  Be kind to yourself and others always.
When you go to get back to your project  either jump right back into it and worry about fixing it later, or wade in slowly with a reverse outline.  Be brave. Have confidence  you actually can finish your writing project.  I believe in you. Until next time keep writing.

Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway: Creating Characters Readers Care About

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Creating characters for our fiction is one of the most fun, complex, and sometimes terrifying writing tasks. Every writer has their method of character creation. Some use a checklist or a list of questions to interrogate their characters. Others write out elaborate backstories and long histories of their characters’ life. At the heart of every story are the characters, and character growth drives every bit of fiction. Even those stories that rely on more detailed plots depend on the character’s reactions, inaction, and behaviors to move the story along.

What is the terrifying part of character development? Getting it right. We must work to have our character’s behavior ring true. Character creation, the heart of storytelling, is the one thing most likely to keep me up at night, worrying I got it wrong.

What does it mean to get a character wrong? I know that I am not alone in there have been times I am reading a book or watching a film. One of the characters does something so beyond their nature that you close the book or shut the movie off because they have jumped the shark, and now the beautiful bubble of suspension of belief is broken, and you are left muttering to yourself, wtf? And what about writing characters outside our lived experience? What are the key things we need to know about our characters?

Fear of getting characters wrong stops many new writers cold. They get so twisted worrying about how their characters will be received that they give themselves a massive case of writer’s block. Pro tip: If you write contemporary fiction, folks will often assume the characters you create are based on people you know or yourself. This is also part of our fear. We often use elements of ourselves in creating characters, even if we are not conscious of it at the time. We worry that we reveal too much of ourselves or that others will see themselves in our characters.

The cure for this is to write it anyway. Portray your characters as honestly as possible, even if they are fictional. Don’t be afraid to create characters who differ from you in gender identity, race, or culture. Do your research.  Conduct interviews and work with sensitivity readers when you are creating characters that are outside your lived experience. This is how you create relatable characters.

At the very least, I’ve found it helpful to know these things about your characters. In the list below, internal refers to the unobservable, and external refers to the tangible and observable. For example: Wanting financial security is an internal goal. Having a million dollars in your bank account is an external goal.

  1. Internal and External Goals- What do they want?
  2.  Internal and External Motivations: Why do they want it?
  3.  Internal and External conflicts- Why can’t they have what they want? Why can’t they  achieve their goals? Internal and External conflicts
  4.  Fears- what are they afraid of?
  5.   How far will they go? What will they do/sacrifice/overcome to achieve their objective?
  6. The lie they tell themselves and the lie they tell others about themselves. Thank you, Molly O’Keefe, for sharing this bit of wisdom.
  7.  Timeline of significant life experiences up to that point and how they feel about them. For example, a divorce can be seen positively or negatively by the character. {Directions for this exercise can be found in Chapter Six of Eileen Cook’s Build Better Characters. If you can only afford one book on character development on this list, this the book to start with. It is in KU right now (January 2023) for folks that have a KU subscription.}
  8.  Relationships: Who are their important people? Who do they care about the most?

These are some books and classes I recommend as excellent resources for character creation.

  1. Build Better Characters: The Psychology of Backstory & How To Use It In Your Writing to Hook Readers by Eileen Cook. {https://books2read.com/u/mgP2Px} This is the book I wish I had when I was first started writing. Eileen is an award-winning (use her bio) author, and this book explains how to construct characters and, more importantly, get at the root of their motivations, fears, and behaviors—filled with exercises that will help you figure out how to build characters that are believable and relatable.
  2. Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict {https://books2read.com/u/4ARJRe} is also a go-to for me. At the heart of any story are your character’s goals, their motivation for achieving those goals, and the obstacles in their way—a must-have, in my opinion, for any writer’s bookshelf. Her simple explanations and worksheets are the most helpful in understanding how character arcs work.
  3. Hal Ackerman’s Screenwriting Class. {https://www.creativelive.com/class/screenwriting-the-art-of-the-first-draft} This class is offered on Creative Live and can be purchased through them. Hal’s explanation of how characters’ behaviors drive plot is excellent and well worth the price. If you buy the class, you can download it for rewatching whenever you need a refresher. I use his method of plot outlining for all of my stories. Knowing what a character will do/sacrifice to achieve their objective is vital in creating compelling plots that will have readers turning pages.
  4. Angela Ackerman’s and Becky Puglisi: Emotional Wound Thesaurus, Positive Character Traits Thesaurus, Negative Character Traits Thesaurus, The Conflict Thesaurus Volumes 1 and 2. {https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZH6WS6C?binding=kindle_edition} I use this collection of books in two ways. If I am starting to noodle a book and am casting about for plot ideas and conflicts that will power my story, I thumb through these books for ideas. If I already have a rough idea of the conflict at the center of my story, I will use these books to define how that will play out in the story. Please don’t skip the introductions in these books as they explain the concept each explores in depth and are well worth your time. They fit into Debra Dixon’s Goal Motivation and Conflict framework perfectly.

How to use this information

After reading and rereading and putting into practice recommendations from the above sources, (full reveal, I credit Eileen Cook’s Build Better Character’s book for my Goldie Win), I came up with a form that helps to organize the information I find most helpful to know about each of my characters. You can find a downloadable version here as a fillable PDF workbook.

Disclaimer: While it might be helpful as a standalone workbook it will make so much more sense if you read Debra Dixon’s Goal Motivation and Conflict and Eileen Cook’s Build Better Characters, along with the other references listed above.

Link for Workbook: https://BookHip.com/HDPNDMX

Back to Blogging and New Opportunities

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typewriter is on top of a blue tableIt’s been a while since I’ve written for the blog, but I am dusting it off for several reasons. When I started the blog in 2014, I was anxious for a creative outlet. My early posts focused on book reviews, life with ADHD, parenting, and my experiments with different ways to organize myself as I worked toward submitting my work for publication.

After seven years work, I am an award winning author, with eighteen published books (soon to be nineteen). I am a hybrid author working with a traditional small press and indie publishing my shorter works.

So what does that mean for this blog? My new vision for the blog is one where I share writing tips, tools, software, and methods of work along with reviews of writing craft books. As before, you’ll never see pop-up ads or ads at all on the blog. You will see affiliate links from time to time when there are products that I use and think would help you. Affiliate links provide a small commission to me if folks purchase the item using my link. It doesn’t add to your costs, but it helps pay for web fees and keep the lights on for the blog.

When I started seriously working on developing my writing craft, I devoured writing blogs and craft books. I was always looking for ways to work with my brain, with my specific thought processes, and for help with my distraction issues. I found many blogs and books with great suggestions.  Some worked for me, and some didn’t. I’m still working on developing my craft and spend time each week reading craft books and putting into practice ideas and methods to hone my craft. No one ever achieves mastery in the writing craft, but you can always strive to improve your writing.
And that is key about future posts. If I present something on the blog as a method of work it has worked for me, or for folks I know, and your mileage may vary. So for better or worse, from now on, this blog will be focused on writing and working as a writer with distraction issues.

So no matter where you are in your writing journey, come along for the ride by subscribing to my new newsletter, also titled Writing While Distracted. In addition to exclusive newsletter content a few times a month, each time I publish the blog, it will arrive in your inbox. You won’t miss a post. This is a separate newsletter from my author newsletter so don’t worry about redundant content.

 Here is the link to sign up for the Writing While Distracted newsletter and your opportunity to receive my workbook on beating writer’s block. Sign up now because I have so many things I want to share with you all. Click below to sign up and access your free download. 

https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/p9n3t3

See you soon!