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Novel Pacing the Key to Engaging Readers

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Pacing what do we mean when we talk about pacing in an novel? Pacing is how the reader perceives the speed of the story so when we talk about pacing we’re talking about the readers experience and how they feel reading through the novel. Whether they feel breathless, whether they’re comfy and cozy, whether they’re titillated and excited or if they are bored because you’re pacing is off. Pacing that is off will yank a reader out of their experience and has led more than one reader to finish a novel.

Writers who excel at pacing often get reviews from readers who say “I couldn’t’t put this book down.” “I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.” “I stayed up all night reading this book because I wanted to know how it was going to turn out.”  “This book is like a warm hug I didn’t want to end.” “It was wonderful to settle down into the story and feel the world disappear around me.”

            That’s what excellent pacing can do for your novel. The primary tools for pacing your novel are sentence length, scene length, chapter length, word choice, and fiction length. No matter if you are writing flash fiction or a 900-page novel, what the point is the length of your work affects how your readers experiences it and what expectations they bring to the story. If you are writing genre fiction this is particularly important.

People who read thrillers want to be thrilled. They don’t want to be mired down in the middle of the book wondering why their thriller isn’t thrilling them. Thriller readers want the story to have rapid pacing that drags them along, ready or not. If you write cozy mysteries, you’re going pace your story differently because cozy story readers want to experience the story like a warm comforter on a winter night. They want to wrap themselves in the narrative trusting the auth rot tell them the story at a pace that is comfortable for the reader. They are reading cozy stories whether it’s cozy fantasy or cozy mystery because they want to be tucked into that world and enjoy their reading experience at a leisurely pace.

            Romance readers, depending on the reader want different paced story. Some want a slow burn, others want a story want to get the naughty exciting bits right away. Some want the pacing of a romantic thriller, and others want a cozy romance. Science fiction and fantasy readers tend to enjoy long stories that are well paced with wonderful world building where the exciting bits the stuff that makes you turn the page.

            This is where knowing who you’re writing your story for comes into play. Knowing what story you want to tell is really going to help you with your pacing.  

When trying sort the pacing of your novel use your past reading experiences. Think of those books that kept you up all night long no matter what your obligations were the next day. And those books you slugged reading through because it was required reading for a class, other times because you were into torturing yourselves finishing a book you weren’t enjoying. As I’ve gotten older I do that way less often. If I am not feeling a story, I’ll just stop. I may go back to the book later because I might be the frame of mind to finish it. Which is something to remember. You don’t know what frame of mind or expectations your reader is bringing to their reading experience. You can’t control or anticipate their attitude but you can do is provide your reader with well written, well-paced story.

For me choice word choice is one of those things so many new writers overlook. The words you choose affect your reader as much as anything in your book. When I refer to word choice when I say asphalt versus black top, they’re basically the same word if I say parking lot, that’s a slower word choice. Parking lots can be made of just about anything, packed dirt, asphalt, grass, pavers, brick, loose stones, concrete, it slows the reader down as they sort through the various kinds of parking lots to come up with one that fits their idea of the story, which takes time.

The length of words how snappy they sound affects pacing. Languid is one of my favorite words, because you feel it you say it. Languid is sensual word and that conveys and taking your time to do something at a leisurely pace. If you write that your character strode down the street you story moves at a different pace than it does if you write your character strolling down the street.  Both of those words feel different to your reader and influence how the story moves along.

No less important is sentence length. Long drawn-out sentences make your reader slow down because they have to concentrate to focus on what you’re working to convey in that sentence. Complicated sentences require more focus than short snappy sentences. Short direct sentences allow your reader to move quickly through the paragraph and on to the next thing.

 If you’re writing a fight scene, skip the paragraph length sentences. If you’re writing an argument or break up or any other intense negative emotion you want to lean into snappy sentences for the dialogue. If you are explaining details of a crime, that might be the time for long sentences. The length of sentences affects the readers experience of the characters experiences. For example a scene that involves grief. Do you want your characters and the reader wallowing in grief? Write long detailed sentences about the characters loss, the drive out to the graveyard and the burial. Do your characters want to ignore or skip over their grief, do they just want to put it behind them? Write short sentences and paragraphs, showing how they are avoiding their grief, These are the details that often escape new writers, but pacing is one of those things that will bring people back to your books, if they like how they felt while they were reading. If they enjoyed the sensation of being so swept away in your story they couldn’t’t wait to get back to your book or they couldn’t wait to find out what happened nest. If they couldn’t’t stand leaving the world and the characters they immediately read you book again or slow their reading down because they couldn’t wait for it to be over.

 Many cozy readers love to return to their favorites work because they enjoy the safe cozy feeling of knowing what to expect.

The next tool in your pacing took kit is scene length. Short scenes versus long scenes versus medium scenes. A scene can be as long as a paragraph or longer. It can be two pages three pages, or five pages. It depends on what’s going on in the scene and how you want your readers to experience the scene.

Is it a pivotal scene? The big reveal?  Is it something you want them to remember or understand? The thing to remember with scene length is that not all the things you want to your reader to know need to go into one scene. Many new writers and particularly neurodivergent writers, fall into the category of writers who know volumes about their subject.

They’ve done hours of research and they’re carrying it all around in their head and they want to share that knowledge with you. Or they have written pages long back story for each of their characters and they want you know what they know about them.  Sharing details and information is for many neurospicy folks a love language. We want you to know all the things that we know because we think is so cool we want everyone to know it. All of that information is rambling around in our head. Neurodivergent folks are prone to info dumping, all at once all the things that we know often overwhelming our family, friends and random strangers and if we are writers, our readers.

 While may want your reader to know all the cool things you found while researching your novel, or the amazing backstories of your charters, dumping all of the information out in one scene or chapter is not the way to do it. It is the number one thing I see new writers do that trashes their pacing and negatively affects their narrative They have great stories to tell, they’ve done amazing research, and really created wonderful characters and they want you to know it, so they spill it all out in blocks of text that don’t have anything to do with the stories plot or character development.

It is fine to share your research and character backstory with your readers, but you want to use the sprinkle method. That’s where you sprinkle your research throughout the book for your readers to absorb it in small bits. It’s overwhelming to absorb any large volume of information all at once but trickle it out over your narrative, in little bits backstory, and pieces of observations and research, that you’ve done also respects your readers time and focus.

We talked about length of scene now let’s talk about the length of your fiction. Flash fiction absolutely astounds me. It is amazing, the emotions that can be generate in so few words. The same can be said for short stories as well. I love a good short story.  I like a good novella. I love shorter novels and I love longer novels when I’m in the mood. I’ve read several fantasy works that the books top out right around 700 pages and I enjoyed all 700 pages because the writer was so good at pacing and I was sucked in and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen on the adventure.  

Maintaining pacing over a long novel no different than maintaining pacing for flash fiction. Every word choice, sentence length, scene length and other choices count. Every scene counts and that’s really what I’m trying to get you to understand, of all the choices you make when writing, your pacing choices matter most.

I want you to embrace that idea when are revising your novel, because revisions are where you fix the pacing.  I am a firm believer in a fast rough first draft and believe that is the only way many writers are going to get their book written. They have to just write it. Get it out of their heads and then fix any problems.

 I fix pacing at the same time I’m fixing structure as the two are very intertwined. I image structure as the trellis that pacing grows on, as your story progresses. I’ll link my podcast about structure in the show notes. I’ll also add a link for a free pdf of thirty pacing tools and how to use them as well as a link for the book Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld. It explains offers a wonderful explanation how structure and pacing work together in scenes and your novel scenes. Novels are made up of scenes and writers need to understand how they work together to move your reader through your story.  

The final thing I want you to consider is how important your pacing is so that readers finish your book.  Nothing will make a reader give up on story faster than wonky pacing. Even if you start out strong with great first couple of chapters, if pacing falls apart in the middle, readers will stop reading.  Cut the scenes that don’t do anything.  Insert scenes or revise scenes that don’t move the story along. Make sure every scene is doing its job, to move plot along or show character development. If your mind is wandering reading through your manuscript, you’ve got a problem and you need to fix it. You fix it by going back and looking at your word choices, your sentence length, your scene length, and your chapter length. Read through your narrative, are you telling an interesting story that’s going to encourage your readers to turn the page? Have you told an entire story in each chapter and not left them wondering what happens next?

Each scene should end on an event that makes you want to read more. Make something happen particularly at the end of a scene or paragraph that makes the reader go “wow, I wonder what’s going to happen next?” That’s the experience you want your readers to have, that’s what keeps readers coming back to read your next book and the book after that. Mastering pacing can be challenging but it part of the craft of novel writing and can be learned. Keep at it. Use these tools to keep your readers turning pages and until next time keep writing.

Don’t forget your free pdf on novel pacing here: https://BookHip.com/RXVGPCX

If you have not check out my podcast you can find it on most podcast listening platforms, or check it out here on Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-fwtcv-1661a39

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!

Will it Novel? How to evaluate a fiction premise

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       This is the second blog post in my Steps to Writing a Novel Series. You can find the introduction to the series and the list of steps to writing a novel here. For most writers coming up with an idea is the easy part. In love with their premise, convinced it is a brilliant concept they are compelled to start writing.

They fly along, the words flowing until they hit a bump, maybe at 20k into the manuscript or 30k, most often in the middle of their work. At this point many folks abandon their project and move on to the next shinny idea. This leads to piles of unfinished projects and sadness. Unfinished manuscripts are most often unfinished because time was not spent on the front end of the project to examine the novel’s idea.

         A strong premise and supporting ideas are necessary to carry the length of work. It is the number one question to answer before you start writing, particularly in genre fiction because you are working within an expected framework, i.e., in romance there is a happy ever after or a happy for now, in mystery novels you solve the crime, etc. the way you arrive at the expected outcome is the most important part. Readers know how the book ends, it is how creatively a writer arrives at the ending that draws readers to your work.

 A premise that might work wonderfully for a short story, will fall short of holding a reader’s attention in a novel length work unless it is expanded and your main characters lives are complicated by events that block their path forward. If this sounds like I am about to talk about plotting, I am.

Although I am a discovery draft writer, I always take the time to examine my idea and then work out a loose plot line based on the initial premise. For example, the idea for my novel Music from Stone came to me one night while we were sheltering in our basement due to a tornado warning. What if my main characters met because they ended up in a basement together during a storm?  From there I used the ‘what if/and then’ method, asking myself questions until I believed the idea would support a book length manuscript.

Step one in evaluating any idea is to know what length story you want to write. If you are writing genre fiction, you have to know expected lengths for your genre.

Here is a list of lengths by genre. Caveat: This is a guide, but if you are planning to submit to an agent/acquiring editor/publisher sticking to the expected length can go a long way toward getting your work read by agents, and publishers. If a publisher takes direct submissions, there will be a page with submission requirements, including expected word counts. Stay within the word counts. It will increase your chances of acceptance.

  • Mainstream women’s fiction: 90,000–100,000 words
  • Thriller: 90,000–100,000 words
  • Romance: 65,000–80,000 words
  • Mystery: 80,000 words *cozy mystery is usually a bit shorter, 70-60,000 words
  • Science fiction: 100,000–120,000 words
  • True Crime: 90,000–100,000 words
  • Historical fiction: 100,000–150,000 words
  • Memoir/Bio: 70,000–90,000 words
  • Literary fiction: 80,000–100,000 words
  • Young Adult: 70,000–80,000 words
  • Middle Grade: 40,000–50,000 words
  • Novella 17,500-40,000 words
  • Short story 1000-15,000 words

Step two is to use one of the two ways listed below to explore your idea. I have use both of them. Each has its benefits depending on how your mind makes connections and where you are in the story process. I recommend you try each of them to see what fits for you.

  1. Mind Mapping. Mind mapping is a non-linear way to capture ideas. I use often. My mind tends to go off on tangents before coming back to the central issue I am exploring and in the tangents lie the gold. To assess your premise using a mind map, start with a blank piece of paper. You can do this on your computer, but I find that the keyboard and structure of mind mapping applications slows me down and I lose my line of thinking.

To construct a mind map, write your premise/ idea in the center of a large sheet of paper. Keep it to bare bones, using one or two sentences. When I say large I mean use a poster size sheet of paper.  If you write small you can do this on a smaller sheet of paper but I find using a large sheet of paper frees me from rejecting ideas because I have run out of space. If you know the ending of your story because you are writing genre fiction write that in a far corner of the page to keep it top of mind. Once you have the page set up ask yourself the following questions. Write the answers to them around the main premise:

What do my characters do for work?

Do they love their work? Or hate it?

How old are they?

What do my characters want?

Why can’t they have it?

Who are their friends/helpers?

Who are their adversaries?

How do my main characters meet?

What will they do to get what they want?

Where are they?

What time period/setting for the story?

What do they hate?

What do they love?

Why do they want what they want?

What successes have they had?

What failures haunt them?

How deal they deal with failure/success?

What is the lie they tell themselves?

What is the lie they tell others?

*Any other questions you feel are necessary for your project, as related to your characters/story. For example, for my fantasy/paranormal stories I always include questions about magic and its costs, questions about power dynamics, and political systems.

Once you have the answers to the questions completed, draw lines that connect them. From those connection lines write a list of scenes that would show those answers. Example. Your character has failed many times at starting a business. She still believes she can succeed with the right idea. You would list a scene using one or two sentences showing her in conflict with her mother when she asks to borrow money for a new venture provides an opportunity to show her optimism and her conflicted relationship with her mother in the same scene. Here is visual of a mind map with just a few of the questions listed but you can see how answering the questions in scene form allows you to see if the premise lends itself to expansion.


I structure my novels by scenes and plan them that way. As a discovery writer I don’t always know what is going to happen in a scene but I know what the point of the scene is when I sit down to write it. Most of my scenes run about 1000 words.* I am able plan the length of my work by how many scenes I need to tell the story. For a seventy thousand novel I need about seventy-five scenes. {*Your mileage may vary, everyone has different average scene lengths, once you know yours plug those numbers in for how many scenes you will need for your project.} Pro tip: It is okay to have more scenes listed than you need to tell the story, you can pare down the number of scenes once you sort them into a narrative. Learning to mind map has saved me more than once from starting a novel without enough ideas to keep the story from bogging down in the middle.

  1. Playing ‘what if’/ ‘and then’. This method can be done by hand or on the computer. At the top of your page/document write out your premise. Keep it to one or two sentences.

Ask yourself “and then” and write out your answer. If you get stuck, switch to ‘what if?’ and keep writing using a stream of conscious type flow. Don’t worry about spelling or punctuation just keep moving. Stop when you have exhausted all of the ‘what ifs’ and ‘And thens’ you can think of. This exercise works well as a way to revive unfinished projects too.  Be as dramatic/silly/wild/over the top/ as you can with your writing. Once you are finished, put it aside for a day or two, when you look at it again, make a scene list/outline from your ideas. Here is a short example.

Idea: A high powered lawyer returns to a small town to settle her father’s estate and meets the woman of her dreams.

What if they meet because the woman is fostering her father’s dog?
And then they have a one-night stand?
What if the lawyer had a bad relationship with her dad?

What if his business accounts reveal missing money?

What if she goes looking for his account ledgers?

And then she finds his diaries instead and reads them.

What if they reveal he was having an affair with a married woman?
And then someone tries to kill her by burning her father’s house down.

What if the woman she had a one-night stand with offers to let her stay for free at her house? What if she falls in love?
And then loses her job?

What if another attempt is made on the lawyer’s life and the woman saves her?

I also use this method if I get bogged down in the middle of a manuscript or if I feel if the story feels flat.

There are other ways to evaluate your story ideas, but these are the two methods I have found work well for folks with non-linear thinking patterns. Both methods support and harness the creative power of individuals whose thoughts spiral out from ideas and who are tangential thinkers. As helpful as it is discussing your ideas with trusted writer friends, having a record of your plot ideas and a scenes list is essential. It is not a question of if you will get stuck at some point in your manuscript, it happens to everyone, what is important is what you do to get unstuck. When you take the time to evaluate your story idea before you begin you can save time and avoid frustration. Evaluating the idea/premise for a story is a key element for writing success and manuscript completion and is the first step in my list of 12ish steps to writing a novel. Use these methods to keep you writing until you reach those magic words THE END.  I hope you found this post helpful. I’ll be back next month with the second in the series. Until then

Happy Writing!

Shortish List of Steps for Writing A Novel.

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This month’s blog post is going to be a little bit more nuts and bolts on how to write a book. There are numerous books that list steps for writing a novel. Many of them, while well-meaning simplify the process beyond to the point of being unrealistic.  Going forward I will post more technical blog post for steps in the fiction writing process.  Some steps will overlap with non-fiction and memoir. I’ll point out where the steps diverge and offer practical tips for those steps as well.

This is my list of steps for writing a fiction book. * Keep in mind this is my list. Your list may/will vary once you finish your first book. For most writers it is a process that they refine as they improve at the craft, the most important part of all of it is to start, keep what works for you and discard the rest. * This is a short list, but each step in the list is a project itself. Going forward I will explore each of these steps in longer blog posts with links and how-tos for each one.

  1. Idea. This is the kernel of thought that grows into a novel. It can be anything, an overhead sentence, a fragment of a song, a video clip, a person you see/meet, or a dream, anything really. The ideas I’ve found most worthwhile to investigate and expand on are the ones that stick around.  Keep a small notebook or other means of recording record these snippets of ideas, so you never run out of things to write about.
  2. Expansion of the Idea. This is where you take the time to work through the initial idea and ask what if questions. Identify/create your main characters. This is where some folks get bogged down, deciding they don’t know enough to write about their idea and spend all of their time doing research for their novel. My advice is this, novels are ultimately about people and their interactions, no matter what type of novel you are writing. Do enough research to get started, to give you a rough idea of what details you may need later in revisions but set a time limit for your research and stick to it. You can come back later and fix things during revisions.
  3. Pre-writing: Character sheets, Goal, Motivation, and Conflict sheets. Plotting/ Scene list/outline. Decide on the length of your story. Set a deadline. If you haven’t downloaded my character workbook you can get it here: (https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ofxxsx32dj)
  4. Write first draft.

             4a. Once you have completed your first draft, celebrate!

              4b. Set the draft aside for one to two weeks (seriously do not look at it!).

  1. Read over first draft. make revision notes about structure, dialogue, plot, character ARCs and setting/description, also any research that needs to be done to fix things and add in details.
  2. This is where you fix all the problems from the first draft and refine your manuscript. Use your notes to fix plot holes, repetitive words, and add in or correct details from your research.

                 6a. Send draft to beta readers if using them. Work on the next project while waiting for their suggestions.

                 6b. Start the next project! Why start the next project now?  Three reasons: 1. So you don’t sit around and freak out about the what ifs surrounding your book while it is out to your beta readers or copy editor. 2. So that you can remind yourself that you are a writer and writers write. 3. Once you have your book out on submission, if the publisher, acquiring editor, or agent replies, “I like this, what else do you have?” you will be ready to take advantage of their interest.

              6c. Review beta suggestions, change things if you need/want to.

  1. Edit final draft.
  2. Read one more time. Send to your proofreader if you are using one.
  3. Format for Submission * Indie publisher this is when you format for the various vendors.
  4. Submit to editor, publisher, or agent. *Indie publisher this is when you publish.
  5. START NEW PROJECT! Not kidding here, iIf you didn’t start the next project before do it now! See the reasons under 6b for why you need to get back to writing.

This is not a definitive list but it is a place to start. Once you have written a book or two or three you will have your own list. Treat this list as a way to get started and break what is a large undertaking into manageable stages/activities/journey markers. This list focuses on the fiction writing process because most of the people who have asked for my advice or help with writing have been fiction writers and was generated for people who are considering submitting their work to an agent, publisher, or acquiring editor. I have indie published a small amount of my work and am not an expert on the process.

 Luckily for folks who want to indie publish there are many more steps that go into this list. There are websites that have a ton of free information on how to indie publish and what steps you should follow to indie publish your manuscript. Here are three that I have used and value the information they provide.

Joanna Penn’s website (https://www.thecreativepenn.com) is loaded with free information. The folks at the The Creative Academy for Writers offer many events, writing sprints, craft workshops, and helpful workshops for indie and traditional writers and you can find them here: https://creativeacademyforwriters.com .  The 20books to 50K Facebook group is also chock full of information,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/20Booksto50k/ .

Writing a book is marathon. For folks with ADD/ADHD and other mental health challenges, it can feel like scaling a mountain just to get yourself to sit down and write. My goal is to offer suggestions that will work for folks that struggle with organization, executive function, and motivation. So many folks burn themselves out treating it like a sprint or they give up before they start because their brains do not function like everyone else.

My goal in presenting these topics each month is get you to the place where you’re ready to send your polished finish manuscript off to an agent, or an editor require a publishing house or you’re ready to go enter the steps that you would take to indie publish.

These are some helpful tools/websites/books for you to explore. Full disclosure: Some of these are affiliate links and I get a small commission if you use the link, it does not affect the price you pay for the item or service.

 Scrivener (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/)  I love Scrivener. It has a learning curve but it also has multiple tools that help me keep track of all my scattered thoughts and ideas that eventually become a book. It has helped my process more than anything else I have invested in since I started writing.

 Learn Scrivener Fast (https://murphy.krtra.com/t/6hyUmVf9MYlF)   The best investment I have made in my writing career. This course helps you get the most from Scrivener and Joseph’s teaching style is wonderful. Use the code on the first page for a discount.

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon. (http://www.debradixon.com) Conflict is story, and Debra Dixon’s Goal Motivation and Conflict is one of the best writing books I have ever read. She offers free tools on her website that will get you started with knowing your characters on a deeper level, and crafting story arcs that will keep your readers turning pages.

Scrappy Rough Draft by Donna Baker. ( https://www.amazon.com/Scrappy-Rough-Draft-strategically-motivate-ebook/dp/B07XNK536B/ ) : This book is the one to read if you are struggling with getting yourself to start. Full of great ideas and motivation treat yourself to this book that feels like your bestie is right there beside your chair cheering you on as you write.

Build Better Characters by Eileen Cook. (https://www.amazon.com/Build-Better-Characters-psychology-backstory-ebook/dp/B07XN1VJ6T/ )  Compelling characters and their change/growth are an essential part of fiction. Elaine’s book helps you get to the nuts and bolts of why your characters do the things they do. Chock full of helpful worksheets and ideas, this book is well worth your time.

Make A Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld. (https://www.amazon.com/Make-Scene-Revised-Expanded-Powerful-ebook/dp/B077KGM44N/)  This book radically changed how I develop my storylines. A book is a collection of scenes and this book lays out how to string your scenes together to have your readers anxious to read what comes next. The best book in my opinion if you are struggling with the infamous “show don’t tell” writing advice. For those of us who are freaking out at the idea of writing an entire book (all those words!), working scene by scene helps with perspective. On those days I struggle overwhelm, I can remind myself I can move the novel forward one scene at a time.

I hope you will find some or all of these resources helpful,

 until next time

 Brenda.

When the Words Won’t Come: Writer’s Block and the Distraction Connection

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There is a strong link between writer’s block and distraction. Often when we feel like the words won’t come we have plenty of ideas away from our desks but the second we sit down to write we just can’t get them out of our brain. When our stubborn brains refuse to generate anything new or even edit something have already written often it is because we have deep distractions and intrusive thoughts that combine to strangle our creativity. The source of these distractions vary but this post is going to discuss the big three: worry, fear, and boredom.

Worry

Sources of worry are multifold. It could be a time in your life where you have a million real life things, important things, you are responsible for, so playing with your imaginary friends really is not top of mind. We can also be distracted because we are at an uncomfortable part of our story.  When we are working through very difficult parts of our novel maybe were touching on things that are sensitive in our lives, we worry about how our words will be received.

Preemptive worrying is worry on steroids. Our words remain locked in our minds because of worry. This is perhaps the hardest part of writer’s block. One solution is to remind yourself that you are writing a draft and you are not required to show the draft to anyone.

If the block is related to a particular scene, try breaking that scene out, write it as a separate document, or writing it out by hand, or dictating it can free you to write whatever you want, without worry that someone will see your work before you are ready to show it to them. Caution: When you do show your work in draft form, be careful who you show it to when you do. Not everyone has your best interest in mind. Choose your beta readers wisely. You want folks that are honest but not folks who use that an excuse to be unkind.

FEAR

Fear is worry’s bigger sibling. Fear is the heart of writer’s block. Fear our work sucks. Fear we have nothing to say. Fear we are going to look foolish. Fear we are wasting our time and are shirking our responsibilities.

Leaving aside the fears linked to Imposter Syndrome (our work sucks, nothing to say, looking foolish) we are going to focus on the fear we are being irresponsible when we spend time writing.

Everyone has responsibilities, what is particularly difficult for folks with Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorders (ADD/ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is managing them because we struggle with Executive Function skills. If your Executive Functions are intact you have the ability to plan, manage, organize, and control your actions in order to accomplish tasks, and complete goals. Executive Function skills include time management, organization, accessible working memory, and self-monitoring.

The worst part for those of us who struggle with Executive Function is we know we when we fail and why.  We know we are struggling. We often have shame about how hard it is for us to do things that other people accomplish without issues.

Our fear of missing/forgetting/disappointing others because we did not do something we must/ should /could /promised to do stops us cold. And because we struggle with working memory, we freeze in place because of the nagging fear we should be doing something else besides writing. Driven by that feeling of dread, we close our document, or spend precious writing time staring at the page as our brain shuts down, refusing to generate anything because of fear.

The most helpful solution I have found for dealing with this fear is having a notebook where I write down everything, every task that needs to be done, every deadline, every thought about things to learn, or check out, thing that I want to learn, try, do, see, purchase, or quit. The most common term for this is a Brain Dump.

 I spent some time researching the term Brain Dump, but I was not able to find the original source of this idea. The idea is to dump out your thoughts like you would empty a file drawer.  In a document or notebook, record everything in your mind without judgement.  Write down all those undone tasks/projects/want-to-dos taking up space in your thoughts.

Write down every single thing. Do Not Rush. Or Judge. After the list is written you can go back through and evaluate if you really need to, or want to do things on your list.  Seriously, please do not rush making this list, the mental health benefits that come from freeing yourself from trying to remember all the things is enormous.

The first time you do this list it will be massive and overwhelming. Set it aside for a bit, get a beverage of your choice and read back over it. Add deadlines to those things that have them (like taxes, purchasing birthday gifts, etc.) Decluttering your brain will help you attain clarity about what actually is important and what needs to be done.  Now add dates next to those things that don’t have a firm deadline but you want to do (learn a language, declutter the junk drawer, etc.).

What does any this have to do with writing? Now that you have a list you can assign those thing specific dates, so when you sit down to write you have freedom from those fears. If that voice pops up insisting you stop because you should be doing something else, you can remind yourself you have it scheduled.  You don’t have to surrender to the fear of not doing the right thing at the right time. This list also helps with sorting out what things really are important, because our lives change, and things that may seem important in the moment are not six months later.

Warning: You will need to rewrite your list.  I suggest rewriting it every twelve weeks or so, as that is a manageable period of time. If you wait longer the fear of forgetting will creep back into your life. This is one of the simplest and most powerful solutions for self-management.

Boredom

Boredom is kryptonite for folks with ADD/ADHD. We like new and challenging. Often when we are blocked it is because our brains are bored with our storyline, or we are in the soggy middle of the novel. Most people like new and exciting things, whether or not you struggle with ADHD/ADD. For many writers when we get to the hard part of the story, every other story in our brains start waving their hankies seductively, asking you to come and write them. It is hard to resist them because it’s a lot more fun to start writing something new then it is to slug through getting to “the end” on a story that you are working on.

These intrusive thoughts, because that is what they are, sudden involuntary thoughts, are the hard to deal with, if you also are coping with other mental health issues your intrusive thoughts may not be related to writing, and can be even more distressing.

 Intrusive thoughts can derail that best of plans. Even when folks with ADD/ADHD are not bored, intrusive thoughts occur. When we are bored, they come fast and heavy. It is one of the reasons I write shorter novels and short stories. My ability to focus is what it is. If I become bored writing a story, because I know how it ends, it is a struggle finishing it. This is one of the reasons I am a discovery writer and shudder at the thought of detailed outlines.

By the time I get to proof edits of a novel, I want to set the entire manuscript on fire because I’m so tired of working with it. It’s not because I don’t like the story. It is because of intrusive thoughts that make focusing on editing difficult.

As we touched in other blog posts, the only way to finish a project is to keep working on the same writing project. You have to finish your draft. It is the only way to get it off your desk and to your beta reader or your editor, or you publisher. You can’t get anywhere with your writing career unless you actually finish the book, the article, the blog post, whatever it is you’re trying to write.

One solution I have found for coping with intrusive thoughts is to capture them. Unless I get them out of my head, I can’t get back to work on the project at hand.  Sometimes the thoughts are so loud, and so insistent, demanding to be written, they are overwhelming. The only way to move on is to acknowledge them.

Allow yourself to stop briefly write down the kernel of the idea. Have a notebook or document specifically for new ideas and thoughts. Use caution here because opening a document can lead to abandoning what you were working on to work on the new shiny thing.

If you don’t find a self-limiting way to record the plot bunnies/ideas/thoughts, like a notebook or 3×5 cards,  unless you have a lot of self-control, you will most likely end up with a bunch of half-finished stories sitting around on your hard drive. Don’t do this to yourself.

I hope you find some of these ideas helpful. Nothing is harder for creatives than being blocked. If you are struggling with writer’s block, please try some or all of these tools. Please don’t give up, the world needs your stories.

That’s it for me. I’ll be back next month with a new post on Imposter Syndrome. Until then happy writing!

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.

Four Tips for Managing Temporal Distortion

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Temporal distortion sounds like the name of an 80s indie rock band, but it is a genuine part of having ADD/ADHD and other mental health challenges that affect our attention. Time for folks who don’t deal with these challenges experience time as a liner event. It just is. Sure, they may seek to manage, organize, or make the best use of it, but very few systems address handling time when your perception it is not like everyone else’s. Temporal distortion can take several forms. Here are three types of temporal distortion.

Hyperfocus is that state of being where time stops for the person who experiences it. It’s those times when whatever you’re doing becomes so consuming that you forget to eat, drink, or go to the toilet because you are so focused. While it can be a positive issue in some cases, in that you may be very productive, it can also create massive problems if you neglect yourself or your family because you let everything go when you are in the groove. 

Contrast this to time exaggeration. It usually occurs when we have to do something that doesn’t grab our attention. It’s as if time is going in reverse. It takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r and a day. This is a symptom of time exaggeration. We exaggerate estimations of the time required to complete a task. We convince ourselves it will take hours, so we don’t even start to work on the task believing we will never finish it.

And finally, what I like to call time evaporation. It occurs on those days we sit down to write, with hours of unscheduled time ahead of us, a blissful infrequent occurrence and a luxury. We then sabotage ourselves by opening a browser to research just one thing. We lie to ourselves that it will only take a few minutes. We fall down the internet rabbit hole, and when we come out, we’ve eight ideas for new stories, learned more about an obscure topic than anyone needs to know, and our writing time has evaporated. 

So, how do we create an environment that can help us improve our perceptions of time so we can get some writing done? Here are my top four tips for preventing/minimizing temporal distortion.

  1. Hyperfocus: Set alarms to combat hyperfocus: Set a timer is the traditional advice for interrupting yourself so you remember to eat, pick up your kids, or whatever crucial thing you may forget to do if you get into your work. However, alarms only work if you don’t ignore them. For folks with attention issues, not responding to and ignoring alarms is not purposeful. Folks in hyperfocus don’t hear or see the world around them. We miss flights, bus, and train stops because we don’t hear the announcements. We lose track of time and miss appointments because we don’t hear the alarm. So alarms may work or not work for you.  For essential things, like picking my kids up from school or meetings, I set my phone alarms with labels so that when it goes off, it does two things, not only does it interrupt me, but it also reminds me why the alarm is occurring, because, in the fog of hyperfocus, it is possible to forget why you need to stop, even for things that are reoccurring like picking up your kids or regular appointments. I also place my phone in a location that forces me to get up from my desk to silence it, put the volume up as high as it will go and set it for an obnoxious sound so that it breaks through my focus. Your mileage may vary but this one thing has worked dramatically for me, in that I can relax and enjoy in my flow state without worrying I am going to miss something important. 
  2. Time Exaggeration: Time yourself doing tasks you dread. I hate folding clothes. Truly hate it. But I hate it a lot less after I timed myself doing it. Taking my time and using our largest laundry basket doesn’t take me more than fifteen minutes. And that is freeing because I know that no matter what, it will not take me more than a quarter of an hour to finish the task. So I can schedule it. Combining it with a labeled alarm means I don’t leave laundry in the washer for days (ugh) and don’t have to dig through a basket of unfolded clothes for the least wrinkled shirt to wear. How does this help with writing? For those things you hate to do, like editing, revisions, or proofreading, time yourself editing a page, keeping in mind that copy editing and story revisions will be different than proofreading. Knowing, on average, how long it takes you to do a task means you can stop procrastinating because you “don’t have time.” You can make the most effective use of your time by scheduling them. It is a way to get through the tasks you don’t like so that you can get on with the ones you prefer instead of fretting about not doing things you hate.
  3. Time Evaporation: One task at a time. If you set time aside for writing, write. No research, mood board creation, character worksheets, or whatever is allowed. Put words on the page. All the other writing adjacent tasks are not writing. The hard truth is that unless you get the words out of your head and on the page, you are not writing, and you will not finish your project. Research, character development worksheets, mood boards, and outlining are all important, but you can become so involved in prewriting tasks you never get to the writing part because, let’s be honest, they are more fun. How to stop yourself from wandering away from your writing? Schedule prewriting tasks separately from drafting. Use an app like Focus (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/focus-time-management/id777233759?mt=12) or Freedom (https://freedom.to) to block access to the internet and other distractions. If you come to a place in your writing and you decide you need to research a topic, or have a question, make a note of it, put it in brackets into the text, and get on with your writing. Preventing distractions can also be as simple as setting your phone to do not disturb, turning it off, or putting it in another room. Numerous studies have shown that mentally switching between tasks requiring different thought processes is ineffective. Multitasking is a myth unless it involves using your body/mind for tasks: like listening to an audiobook while running or answering email while on a stationary bike. 
  4. Create an environment that supports your writing. Do you like to work in chaos? Or does it not matter if you are locked in? I confess to being able to write in just about any place or situation if I have music and headphones. Once I start writing, I don’t notice anything else visually. I realize that for most folks, this may not be possible. I have many friends who can’t write if their kitchen needs cleaning or their house or desk is messy. For those folks, prioritizing creating an environment that supports your writing is vital. Start by listing what your ideal writing space would be. Dream, and let your imagination run wild. After creating your wish list for your perfect writing space, look at the list and figure out what you can do to make it happen realistically. I wrote at a tea shop for years, I would drop my kids at school, and at least three days a week, I would go to Tempelton’s tea shop in my little town and write for 2-3 hours. Over four years, I wrote 12 books in that shop because being there meant I didn’t have anything that distracted me. I treated it like an office. The rent was the price of a pot of tea and a scone. The owners were terrific, and I miss them dearly as they moved back to Scotland a few years ago. After the shop closed, I struggled to get into a groove again. Panic set in as my routine was disrupted. I feared not being able to write as effectively had been. I sat down and made a list of why working at the tea shop worked for me. The bottom line was that I didn’t have to get up to make individual cups of tea, the shop didn’t have windows, and I worked with headphones. All of those things were achievable at home. I purchased a thermal carafe and turned my desk to face the wall. The bonus for this change was more time to write as I reduced commuting time as my house was closer to the school. Nothing lasts forever, and now whenever my routine is disrupted (looking at you pandemic and homeschooling) I go back to list-making and rethinking the situation, focusing on the question: how can I make this work? Check out this video by Struthless (https://youtube.com/watch?v=ikz3ECL5NEk&feature=shares) about your environments and its effect on your art/work/life.

If you are struggling with temporal distortion, I hope these suggestions help you find ways effectively use your writing time. I’ll be back with the next post in this series. Dealing with Disruptions: Two-Legged and Four-Legged.

 

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

When You’ve Lost the Thread

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It’s been a while since I’ve written about writing, mostly because I’ve found a system for fast-draft writing that has worked with my ADHD. I used my system for seven novels and I’ve been comfortable with the results. I have never been a detailed outliner. I work from a scene list and character goal-motivation and conflict sheets and let my story evolve organically within that framework. I typically draft a 60-65K novel in four to six weeks and then spend three to four weeks revising and editing my draft before submitting it.
Trusting in my system, I used it with my current project, a novella-length paranormal romance with dual points of view. With this project, because I needed to attend to two character’s points of view, along with paranormal conventions, I’ve been feeling my way along the story, and it was going well, slowly, but well.
And then I needed to take some time after my brother-in-law’s death. I set my story aside for three weeks, and when I started working on my novella again, I was lost. I couldn’t remember what I had written, or where I was going in the story.
Because my way of working falls somewhere between a painter and a plotter I used a technique that is a routine part of my revision process, I printed out what I had written and reverse outlined the story as a way of figuring out what I needed to do to complete my draft.
After reviewing my outline I know I need to write six more scenes to finish my first draft and have about 13K words to complete those scenes and stay within my word count limit.
What is a reverse outline? It involves reading what you’ve written and then creating an outline from that document. It can be detailed or brief as it fits your style. For me, it’s a one-sentence description of what happens in each scene.
I don’t stop to edit my work. I merely outline my story as it stands. After I have completed the outline I read over it to assess if my scenes flow as they should, that my story beats are where they should be, and in this case that I’ve given equal time to each character’s point of view. I use highlighters to tag types of scenes and transitions.
It is the simplest way I’ve found to check structure and beats, and if you have lost your way, it is a road map back to your central story and ensures that critical elements of your novel are not missing. If you struggle with plotting and structure, try adding a reverse outline to your routine revision process.
This time a reverse outline was a way of finding my way back to writing after a family tragedy, and another step toward preventing my grief from keeping my words bottled up.
Will a reverse outline work for everyone? Nope. If you are detailed outliner and are able to stick to your outline religiously, it might be redundant, as a plotser (panter+plotter) it is essential for me. Try it the next time you’re stuck and take advantage of a simple way to assess your story structure.

Brenda Murphy writes short fiction and novels. She loves tattoos and sideshows and yes, those are her monkeys.  When she is not loitering at her local tea shop and writing, she wrangles two kids, one dog, and an unrepentant parrot.  She reviews books, blogs about life as a writer with ADHD and publishes photographs on her blog Writing While Distracted. You can find her on Facebook by clicking here.  Sign Up for her email list here  www.brendalmurphy.com

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Knotted Legacy

Both Ends of the Whip

ONE  

Sum of the Whole 

Dominique and Other Stories