Writing Wednesday - Tucson Festival of Books - History Meets Fantasy

First, my weekly writing update. I actually still need to do a lot of typing on my snowflake, but I'm basically working on Step 4 now (and actually enjoying coming up with some new threads!). But I have a lot of work ahead of me. It's a bit depressing that the author of the snowflake method says that it may have taken as long as a week to get to this step...I need to work harder.

So as I think I promised, I'm going to share with you everything I heard at the Tucson Festival of Books! Preface: I attended most panels because of an interest in the TOPICS, not the speakers. So some of the people you may see referenced may not write things that are in line with my beliefs, and me mentioning an author here isn't any sort of endorsement at all unless I state otherwise. OK?

I roughly outlined the festival earlier. There are tons of "workshops" and "panels." Most look something like this one.

So I was tempted to go to the panel that author Dave Cullen commented on my blog was on at 10 AM Saturday. But I thought that would be a good compromise on something that would kind of interest my mom and kind of interest me. Except she wasn't interested! So with the fear of potential crowds I ended up at Yvonne Navarro and Janni Lee Simner's "History Meets Fantasy - When to Research and When to Make It Up" panel. (They're both TusCon regulars so I've certainly heard them both speak quite a bit.)

Yvonne Navarro said that you have to take what's real and twist it to fit your purposes.

Janni noted that Thief Eyes was well-researched (at one point she noted that she had to run it by an Icelandic reader to make sure it rang true!). She said that sometimes you start writing a story and realize it takes a lot more research than you thought. She also noted that you have to set up reader expectations. There are lots of different kinds of fairies and vampires, and these portrayals are influenced by legends, by the conversations authors have with each other on the page, and what you bring to them. Overall, you have to know your canon, whether you're writing history or a licensed property.

Janni also noted that it can be easier to have a character who doesn't know everything, so that things can be explained. ((Aside: I do that myself but I wonder if that's something more acceptable in children's and YA novels; I know in adult fantasy it's considered a cliche to have the farm boy who doesn't know anything come onto the scene.... Cliche or not, though, it does seem to work.))

On the topic of vampires, Yvonne noted that not all vampires drink blood (they may take life force, memories, youth--"anything that you, as a writer, could want them to take.") But you have to use the right words, whether or not they are historically accurate (some words that are accurate might not feel right.)

As far as writing goes, Janni said, "You can't write for every reader."

Yvonne replied, "You try, but there are just too many people." She noted that genres cycle through, so what you love may be popular in a few years. Right now zombies are popular, although they have changed quite a bit from their earlier portrayals (namely, they have gotten faster).

Janni and Yvonne joked that the zombies would pick off the smokers. Janni added that it could make a good ad campaign: "I gave up smoking and I survived the zombie apocalypse."

Again, back to writing, Janni said that it's very hard to figure out what people want. Write what you love. It's not a guarantee, but you'll have a better chance of selling, and you get the experience of writing it. (She noted this came from experience, where she tried to write what would sell, and couldn't sell it.)

Yvonne added, write what you love; tell the story you want to tell. "If you don't like what you're doing, if you're not enjoying what you're writing, you might as well work at an office somewhere ... you have to write what you want to write." She said you have to grab readers in the first paragraph. She also suggests new writers read their work all out loud, like it's happening, to help catch typos.

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I'm actually kind of remiss in not having read anything by Janni Lee Simner in particular. I've been to a couple of her readings at TusCon and they're always excellent. I need to remedy that deficiency fairly soon. She's always been very friendly to me. Actually, at her last reading I attended, she did a drawing and I won a journal she made herself!

My concern with journals is the pressure of finding something worthwhile with which to fill them, though...someday!

And I think I'll make a trip to my library soon.

Writing Wednesday - The Tile Method?

OK, so I continue to struggle with the Snowflake Method. I'm not sure if it's because it doesn't work for me, because we never see snowflakes in the southern half of Arizona, or because I actually wrote one entire draft (and about 1/3 of a substantial rewrite) before I actually sat down to try to plan how I was going to do the third (and, God willing, close to final) draft.

For myself, Step 3 seems to be the hangup (to date). Sure, I have my novel envisioned (more or less) in 5 sentences, which is basically the story told from the lead character's POV, since the novel is first-person. But to tell that same story in 5 sentences from the point of view of each of my other characters? Characters who may or may not be present during every significant scene? I eventually got paragraphs of some sort done for everyone, but with very a substantial amount of overlap. In other words, the paragraphs are really boring and not very insightful.

Then I had an idea. Why not do a timeline or a grid explaining what happens during each major plot point that the main character goes through?

That...actually led to a repeat of the overlap problem!

So out of sheer boredom and desperation, I ended up writing what major thing a character does or experiences in each major segment of the novel. Once I had one segment written out, I realized that if, read in the right order, it sounded almost like a story. So I numbered the events in order before proceeding to the next major plot point. While the end got cramped and muddled, I got the first 3/4 figured out more solidly than I'd anticipated, and even figured out the ending. It also helps greatly if you want characters to have parallel or mirrored journeys.

Don't look TOO closely if you don't want spoiled, but otherwise, thank you, cell phone camera and sloppy handwriting!


So the more I think about it, the more I doubt its usefulness in any story that's not clearly anchored by one main character. But once I was done I was able to go and fix some of those weak "5-sentence character journey" paragraphs to be...somewhat less weak. If I find it helps me long-term, I'll try plotting out a well-known story and post it up here at some point.

Still, it's also quite possible that the real lesson was that if you're stuck, try something different...or just sit there bored until your subconscious works it out. Me, when I see little blank squares I just want to fill them in, but a blank sheet of paper is more intimidating.

Writing Wednesday - Snowflake in Phoenix

No writing this week, but some planning. I'm slowly working on that snowflake for my new (OK, rewritten) novel. The idea behind the Snowflake Method is to start with a one-sentence description of the story, and work from there. My current step 1 of the snowflake says:

Brought to a world of magic, a high school girl battles the god who wants her for his priestess.

That's subject to change (i.e. get phrased better).

I have a paragraph-long summary of the plot (Step 2) and now I'm working on Step 3, which is where you explain the characters' storylines.

The Snowflake Method itself states that you should spend 1 hour on Step 1, 1 hour on Step 2, and then 1 hour for EACH character's storyline in Step 3. I spent over an hour on Step 1 (still not satisfied), and something in the ballpark of an hour on Step 2. But for Step 3, I just can't sit down and think about one character's story for a full hour, at least not since I already know 2/3 of the story quite well (it's just the last third that I'm really fuzzy on). For myself, I think it's better to run through that stage fairly quickly, and then double back once all the characters' stories are established. After all, I'm likely to come up with some ideas as I write each storyline, and what affects Bunfa may affect Kelar, and so forth.

The novel is young adult and was called "Chosen: Bonnie of Sheshack." Now I'm wondering if "Bonnie Greenfield, Priestess of Plants" might be better? Or maybe I just like the "P" noise since it sounds like "pirates...."

I also went to the VNSA Book Sale and got a (tiny) book on trees and an (equally tiny) book on flowers. I was born and raised in the desert so I know mesquites and palo verde and saguaros agave and ocotillo...but very, very little about plants that require larger amounts of water to survive.

So I'm (slowly) working!

AND, I ordered Charles Denson's Coney Island Lost and Found. I had a Groupon for Barnes and Noble, which I bought using the referral credit I got when my mom signed up. So my out-of-pocket cost, including tax, was less than $8. Not too bad! I'm hoping to eventually plot and write another novel with Maggie, set on, you guessed it, Coney Island.