From Pantser to Plotter by Victoria Chatham

Every writer falls into one of these categories, some writers may be comprised of a little of both. When I started writing I was definitely a pantser, the type of writer who sits in front of a computer and goes with the flow. As long as I had my characters, the rest would take care of itself, right? Well, not exactly.

My first book held marked similarities to raising my first child. Regardless of what I thought, I hadn’t got a clue what I was doing. To say I struggled with that first book is putting it mildly. At one point I had followed every lead my heroine gave me and finished up writing about her grandmother in pre-war Montreal

and how, pregnant and alone, she ended up in war-torn France fighting with the resistance forces. Great stuff, even though I’m blowing my own trumpet here.

However, that was not the story I was writing. I was writing a contemporary western romance.and badly at that. Had I taken the time to consider more than just my characters I would have saved myself a great deal of time. I’m not a fast writer, and when I realized how much time I’d wasted, I went back to the drawing board as it were.

Yes, I had my characters. They usually present themselves to me fully formed. I know their names and what they look like. Next is to fill in their character questionnaire, even complete a character interview. I know my characters well by this stage but throwing them on the page and expecting things to happen just didn’t work. I found writing historical romance or fiction easier in that I simply looked up the year (god bless Google), to see what major events were taking place world-wide and went from there for my background but it still wasn’t exactly a plot, more of an idea.

When I started writing my soon-to-be-released contemporary western romance, Loving That Cowboy, I soon ran into a brick wall. I’m sure many of you will know what that feels like. The words were just not there. It wasn’t writer’s block per se, more like this writer’s ineptitude. After one very frustrating day when I wanted to File 13 all ten pages I’d managed to produce, I was ready to give up. That was when I became a plotter.

I sat down and started from scratch, looking at my two leading characters and figuring out how to get them together and listed dozens of ‘what ifs?’. All that took time, but as I reached each plot point I noted it on a pink post-it and stuck it on my white board. Very pretty it looked too. Not only that, there was great satisfaction in removing the post-its as I reached each plot point. Now I really felt that I was getting somewhere. Sure there was a fair amount of rewriting on the way, but that is inevitable.

I also went back to several of my craft books, especially Deborah Dixon's Goal, Motivation & Conflict. She recommends watching six specific movies to illustrate her lessons. Great. I love movies. I spent a week watching some of those she recommended and some I chose to work with to determine how much I'd learned. I wrote notes, I went back to the book Save the Cat for more on plotting within the three act structure and finished up that week revisiting Techniques of the Selling Writer. Thank goodness I held on to those books when I packed for my last move.

Having tried both methods, I think from now on I’ll be doing much more plotting instead of relying on my characters to take me somewhere. How about you? Are you a plotter or a pantser, or maybe a bit of each?

For more information about Victoria go to:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/chatham-victoria/

www.victoriachatham.webs.com

www.facebook.com/AuthorVictoriaChatham 

Am I allowed to laugh while at the festival of the dead?

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Am I allowed to laugh while at the festival of the dead?

They say Madness merely depends on which end of the knife blade you’re staring at, and who’s holding the gun to your head. Or so said my mother, before we lost her on that first night of our holidays. She’d taken up jogging the day before she disappeared and to this day we still don’t know where she is.  I was ten at the time and had poked my head around the corner, everyone else was asleep. I asked her where she was going. Thinking it odd that she would be up by herself, getting dressed. She was crying and tried to hide her tears as I asked. She assured me everything was okay and as she patted my rear to the direction of my room, I remember seeing Dad staring through the partly open window of that Mexican beach house. He had a strange look on his face as Mom ran off and it wasn’t from Montezuma’s revenge either.  I’ll never get adults; life as a kid seems so easy. Only mom never came back. I cried for days. Dad said she was just running. It took me many years to know from what. I always thought for years after that it was me.

My parents brought us here to see the festival of the dead. I'd already guessed it wasn't going to be a happy holiday. Solemn affair, everyone just hanging around waiting to see whose limb falls off first. Some even tried placing bets, but all their credit cards had been cancelled and the relatives had absconded with the money. But I thought that's what wills were for. I'd already been to a couple of school sock hops that should have been named the same.

 Yes, Mexico. I did tell mom to make sure she earns brownie points by telling everyone at the festival that she should buy them a drink. Wouldn't cost much and even the zombies can't drink. Well, they try but by the time the drink reaches their mouths they've either crushed the glass or spilled it all over themselves. Oh and note to self, don't waste your best jokes on zombies, they don't get it. Humor I've discovered is way beyond them. But yo-yos are another matter. Keeps them entertained for days. Just watching the ball going up and down, up and down, up and down and believe it or not, up and down. Don't think they get past the string and realize there's someone at the end controlling it.

Yup, survival tip #101 when walking through parts of town that are quite dodgy, "If attacked by zombies, whip out your yo-yo, give it to someone with spasmodic seizures and run like hell".

PS. To all of those who are currently crying into their hankies, Kleenexes or shirt sleeves, please don’t. Do remember this is a blog written by a fiction writer. Hope that is a big enough hint. But if I did get you crying, well I’ve done a good job as a writer at pulling emotion out of the reader. Now if only I could predict lottery scores.

Available in Fall 2015

Writing tips I've learned from my long ride by Sandy Semerad

     It's been a lengthy journey, going from news reporter to author. I'd like to think I've learned a few things along the way, although I have often pondered this question: 

   Has working as a reporter helped me write better novels?

I hope so, but it’s been quite a ride. It didn’t start off as I intended.

As a child, I made up stories in my head, but as a reporter, I had to stick to the facts—“just the facts mam.”

In my early years, as a wet behind the ears journalist, I struggled to write a proper lead sentence with who, what, when, where, why and sometimes how. Or at least I was told that was the proper way.

I’d lose sleep, agonizing over the five w’s, not to mention the how’s. With perseverance, I learned to please my editors and meet my deadlines.

I still think it’s important to know the rules, particularly the rules of grammar, but it’s equally vital to find your own voice. Breaking the rules might be part of that process.

As for my journey as a writer, I have evolved. I’ve learned to construct simpler lead sentences, without including the five w’s all at once. I felt it was my obligation as a news woman to inform readers without boring them to death.

Readers crave excitement and conflict. That I know.

Who wants every question answered in the beginning? Not I.

It wasn’t until I moved to Florida that I started writing down the stories in my head. I saw a man fall from the back of a truck into a car, and I wondered: What if this happened to me on my way to New Orleans during Mardi Gras?

I entertained myself with this story until the characters began to multiply. I couldn’t keep them straight in my head. So I started writing about them. In a few months, I had a novel, or at least the first draft of a novel.

In reading through my first draft, I realized I needed more conflict. It wasn’t easy placing my lovely characters in danger, but I bit the bullet, and ruthlessly overwhelmed them with problems. I made them struggle and fail and encounter death until the very end. Call me merciless.

I also learned how to start off my tale with an inciting incident. I call this hooking the reader. Hook the reader with every turn, I say. Add hooks in the beginning, cliff hangers at the end of each chapter and at transitional breaks.

For me, the beginning of my story is the most challenging. How will I create a life-changing event? Will this event be the death of a loved one, a divorce, a murder, a job loss, a terrible accident, or a violent argument? Whatever, it must be riveting.

My first mystery novel Sex, Love, & Murder (previously Mardi Gravestone), begins with two inciting incidents. In the prologue, the president and my main character Lilah--a journalist and young widow-- are shot. After the prologue, I have the first chapter starting the week before the shootings. Lilah is in an automobile accident. A man is in a coma as a result of that accident. As the ambulance takes him away, Lilah discovers his tossed suitcase, containing cash and the details of a murder.

In Hurricane House, my protagonist is mourning the death of her fiancé when she discovers a body in the gulf.

In A Message in the Roses, Carrie Sue unlocks a diary revealing secrets she has yet to resolve.

But I must confess, when I first began writing novels, I suffered from backstory-itis, commonly known as information dump. (I define back story as anything that has happened to a character before the inciting incident).

As an avid reader myself, I enjoy a story with unanswered question. I like to ponder and wonder. Adding too much of the back story takes that pleasure away from me.

Now I find it helpful to write a back story for each of my main characters before I begin my tale. I want to know my characters as well as I know myself. Armed with this knowledge, I can add back story as needed.

In A Message in the Roses, Carrie Sue’s parents died in a plane crash. I mentioned this in the first chapter, because I thought readers needed to understand why she grabbed a letter opener and tried to stab her cheating husband. If I failed to create sympathy for Carrie Sue, readers might not like her and understand her impulsiveness.  

Including back story can be tricky, no question. It can be almost as complex as utilizing the five senses in scenes.

I have a tendency to overwrite, and for that reason, I hide my first drafts. No one sees them unless I badly need the opinion of someone like my husband, whom I trust.

I wish my every word and every sentence were impeccable but, I no longer bow to perfection while writing the first draft.  

Perfection, I’ve found is an elusive goal, entirely subjective, and in my life, it seems I’ve attained more from my imperfections and failures. I’ve certainly learned never to give up, no matter what, and I sincerely hope you’ve learned a few things from my writing struggles.

Whatever you take away, I want you to know: I write with passion, and when you think about it, writing with passion, might be the best tip of all.

To read more about my work please visit my website and the links below: www.sandysemerad.com

Buy link, A Message in the Roses

Buy Link, Huricane House

Buy Link, Sex, Love & Murder