Voices and Lack Thereof

...Also subtitled, 'Troublesome Characters'.

So.

I'm writing a novel called Jesscapades at the moment, right? The one-liner is 'A dedicated student assassin gets her final assignment: kill her best friend, or be killed by him.' It's not a brilliant tag-line, but it's not too shabby either. I think. The story itself has potential, and bits of world that just make me shiver and go 'Squee!'

The glass, for instance, which goes with the story behind the name of the assassin organisation. They're called Shards, and they kill at the direction of Fate. They get Fate's directions in the Glass Room, a large dome on the top of a tower filled to the brim with glass objects, all hanging from the glass ceiling, all twirling and twining in the dazzling sunlight so the room looks like gold.

When it's time for a person to be killed, their glass falls, and shatters. Shards, right?

Much squee, much happiness.

But here's the thing: right now, I'm a breath away from 60k. The first draft of the novel will be complete somewhere between 70k and 75k, and I expect that to increase by as much as 20k in edits. So the length is good.

The idea is good, the length is good.

Tension, yup, plenty of that. Twist? Oh yeah. Big twists. Conflict? Plenty. Subplots? Lots.

It works. It fits.

But.

Tonight I stumbled upon a review of Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found, which is one of my all-time favouritest books evah. If, one day, I can write a character as amusing and enjoyable and entertaining as Raine, I shall die happy.

And that's precisely the thing. There's one thing missing from my list of the things that are right with my novel: characters.

Oh, sure, I have the characters. They all do their job. They drive the plot, they have needs and wants and motivations....

But right now, I simply can't convince myself to care about them. And it's not because I'm sick of the story, because I'm not. It's because they feel flat. It's because when I compare them to a kick-ass character like Raine Benares, they're weighed and found wanting.

And mostly, it's because of one thing: voice.

Recently Liana wrote a great post on finding your voice. I read it and knew it was important - but it wasn't until tonight after reading the Lisa Shearin interview as well that it all clicked.

See, my characters all sound the same. I'm teaching this great novel at school which is told through three different points of view, and the technique is fabulous: you can tell just by looking at the page - not even reading, just looking - which of the three characters is speaking.

My story has two main POV characters, and a small host of minor ones (about 6 in total, I think??) - and every single one of them sounds exactly the same. Even their dialogue sounds the same.

And right now, at this point in my writing career, I have to admit a scary thing - I'm not actually sure how to fix it. In my head, I have nothing; the characters aren't really speaking to me, I'm not hearing distinct voices for them like I have some of my other characters - and I don't really know what to do. And I have this feeling even character chats won't work.

For now, I'll plug on, and finish the draft as per plan - but if anyone has a suggestion, be it original or directing me to an article, I'm be so grateful for the help. I'm stuck, and my brain isn't offering me any answers.

Oh characters, where art thou??

Breakthrough

It’s been a while since I blogged (ha, I could so just end that sentence there!) about Holly Lisle’s Think Sideways course. Not because I fell out of love with it, not because it suddenly sucked – but because it went faster than I did. I ‘finished’ the course a month ago, and I’d read everything in it – but I hadn’t applied it.

Usually, it isn’t until you apply stuff that you get those gorgeous ‘Eureka!’ moments, where things crystallise and become clear, and you fall in love again.

Yup, it’s middle time. I’m a squeak away from the halfway point in Jesscapdes, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about my way of writing a novel, it’s that the closer I get to the ending, the more scenes ahead I need to have mapped out.

When I start writing, I’m pretty content to go with just a vague – ok, this, then maybe this, and probably this is what will change things in the middle, and it might end like that. By the end of act one (usually between 7 and 12 chapters in), I start outlining a few scenes ahead, so I always know what’s going to happen in the next handful of chapters.

By halfway, it’s time to break out the index cards and have a serious, midstream re-think. The story’s big enough to have gravity, it’s alive enough to have morphed away from my initial plan a little, and it needs tweaking. By now, there are things happening in the beginning which I just know won’t work with where the story needs to go – and I can’t move on until I’ve fixed them. Interestingly, Lisa Shearin shares how she hits a similar point at about 3/4s of the way through.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I go back and edit. If I did that, I’d never finish. I just pretend to edit. I redo the outline, so I know what the story ought to look like by this point, and I keep going. Now, to be honest, the middles section of the Think Sideways course was my least favourite, and for Jesscapdes I used a different model. But now that I’m there, now that I’ve plotted well past the middle and am sniffing the ending – well, my brain needs to know what it is.

So I broke out month five of Think Sideways, and got to work. And man, I am here to tell you, this is why I love this course. I spent a couple of hours yesterday working through the lessons on how to find your ending, and I am so excited. The day before, I hated my story. I hadn’t written in over a week, the story felt like rubbish, the ideas stale, the characters flat... I hated it with all the passion of being-stuck-in-the-middle-of-the-first-draft.

But thanks to Think Sideways and the lessons on story gravity (how to find all the promises you’ve made to the readers in the story) and on how to find the RIGHT ending for your story (pulling together all of those promises without being trite, or lame, or boring or predictable) – wow. I am so excited.

And I remember why I like themes: because even though I’m the one writing the story, I learn something about life every time. Today’s lesson, brought to you by the Theme of Jesscapades: There are some things in life you just have to fight, even if the rules say otherwise.

So, here’s to endings, and being over halfway through the book! *hefts glass* :)

PS - Hoorah! I finally have internet back on at home! Here's also to more regular blogging! :D

Author Interview

There's a cool interview with Lisa Shearin up on Writing It Out.

And I've decided I'm going to stick a gadget in the sidebar for quick announcements like this. Look out for it :)

ETA: It's the pink link above my profile. I'll leave links up for a couple of days, and probably do something like change the colour when a new one goes up so it's obvious ;):)

Book Review: Armed and Magical by Lisa Shearin

Woohoo! 1 down, 156 to go :D

Quick Stats
Genre - Urban fantasy, with a street detective-esque bent
Length - about 300 pages
Author - Lisa Shearin

Overview
This is book 2 in the Raine Benares series. Raine has arrived at the Isle of Mid, and the Saghred has been placed in the Guardians' most secure containment rooms - only they're not terribly containing, not for the Saghred with its seemingly limitless power. But that's not Raine's real problem. The real problem is that there are about a bazillion different factions on the Isle, and they all want a piece of her - or her in pieces. Some of them aren't fussy.

First Impressions
Fun! Oh yes, this stands up to my expectations well :) Just like Magic Lost, Trouble Found, the action starts right on page one, setting in place a chain of events that's exciting, dangerous, and above all, fun. I love Raine and her snarky, street-smart attitude :D

High Points
The general snarkiness of Raine, and the awesome, action-filled plot! She has a truly loveable cast of characters, from the rogue pirate Phealan to the sweet and not-quote-so-innocent-anymore Piaras, to the dreamy Guardian Michael, steamy badboy Tam... Ya know. The works B-)

And the plot just never stops; the pace is relentless from page one, and you're never quite sure what's going to blow up next. Lovely. Just the way things should be.

Low Points
The only minor qualm I have with this series of books is that, essentially, they are 'fluff'. I love and adore these books, and they have had a huge impact on my own writing - but they are ultimately there for entertainment. There isn't really any 'deeper meaning' behind them, and thus far in the two books I've read, there isn't a whole lot of character growth in Raine.

Some days, though, you just gotta have something that's entertaining, and easy on the brain... So there's nothing quintessentially wrong with fluff :)

Rating
So, because five stars, or marks-out-of-ten, or whatever, are boring, I'm going to rate my squillions of TBR books by where they're most suitable to read. I know, I'm a little odd, but work with me here...

So, this one has quite literally been my bathroom book for the last week %-) (Just fyi, my bathroom includes the bath, the toilet, the sink and the shower). I haven't really had time to read, but I started it in the bath last week and couldn't bear putting it away until I had time to finish it. So I've been reading it in snatches every time I'm in the bathroom.

It's a pretty good bathroom book, because it's so action-packed you can get a great deal of entertainment out of each chapter, while the plot is linear enough that you don't forget what was happening between times. The strong voice helps to keep the story fresh in your memory, too. The single only problem with it being a bathroom book is the carried-away factor, where someone bashes on the door and you realise you've been there for fifteen minutes O:)

And I confess, as I got to the climax, the book became a never-leave-my-side book until I finished it :D

Welcome to my Sidebar: Lisa Shearin

"Welcome to the website of Lisa Shearin, the National Bestselling Author of the fantasy adventure series featuring Raine Benares, a sorceress and seeker of things lost and people missing."

Who: Lisa Shearin is the author of the fabulously successful series featuring MC Raine Benares, a wise-cracking street-smart elf who works as a Seeker - and has a nose for trouble. This series is one of my all-time favourites, for its ease of reading, high entertainment value, fabulous dialogue and absolutely sparkly characters - not to mention the awesome urban fantasy-ness of it all :o)

What: This is Lisa's author website. It's chock full of goodies, from news about her latest books to events such as signings, free chapters to read and of course, her blog.

Where: Here, or here: www.lisashearin.com

Why: Lisa has a great sense of humour, which comes through in both her books and her blog. She shares her experiences openly and candidly, treating us to insights into the life of a Real Live Author :) From the way she balances writing with her day job, to cooking for the family when you're in the grips of a novel, to how she begins writing her book, to some wonderful posts on editing that inspired my own edits on TBAEO, Lisa's blog is a genuine, entertaining look into the life of someone who does what we all dream of - Writes, and gets Paid To Do So :)

When: Usually daily, with 'fun pics' on Saturdays :)

Story Elements #2: Pace

Welcome to the second Story Elements article! If you missed the first one on conflict, check it out here. This article on pace follows on from the article on conflict. Why? Because you can have the most superb conflict in the world, but if you don't nail the pace, it'll come out boring.

First of all, what is pace?

Wordnet.princeton tells us that pace is the "rate of moving". The Glossary of Technical Terms for Comparative Reading suggests that pace is "the 'speed' at which a text moves; for example, an adventure story may be 'fast-moving' with lots of incident and dialogue, while a romantic novel may be 'slower', containing less action and more description".

I don't know about you, but I don't think that 'rate of moving' is terribly useful in terms of writing. And the glossary's definition, though more concretely related to writing, doesn't really help much either - basically, it can point at something and say whether it has pace or not, but it still doesn't tell us what it really is.

Here's a definition that strikes me as a whole lot more useful: 'Relative speed of progress or change.' Conflict, as we know, is change. Pace is the speed of conflict - the rate of change. In some books (romance, some chick lit, literary, possibly high fantasy) the rate of change is slower, and the overall tone of the book as a result is quieter. In other books - action, urban or contemporary fantasy, etc - changes happen quickly and the book feels faster, louder.

Both styles can be compelling, but often the difference is in what makes them compelling. Pacey books often compel the reader to keep reading by the sheer speed of events - things just keep happening and there's no 'convenient' place to stop and put the book down. Slower books still have a progression of events and conflict (else they would be neither interesting nor a narrative!), but they tend to rely more on characterisation and the like for their compulsion.

And just as both styles can be compelling, both can suffer from myriad problems. Too fast, and you risk losing your reader to confusion, tiring them out, and potentially skimping on things like characterisation and logic. Too slow and you also risk losing your reader, but this time to boredom.

For me, personally, the bigger problem is slowness. Well, it's currently the bigger problem :D Last year, when I started my first serious attempt at a novel, I ended up moving the story too fast and skimming over a lot of important world building and characterisation. As a result, readers were confused about the rules under which the world operated, and didn't really connect with the MC - because they weren't given a chance.

My second attempt suffered too far the other way. I'm talking here about Logan, and you can dig up the post in my archives where I decided that the first ten chapters - about 15,000 words - were backstory. Nothing happened.

Although this is a bit of a misnomer. Of course things happened; if they didn't, I'd have had nothing to write about, would I? The problem was, the things that were happening weren't imperative to the story. Sure, it was important that those things happened, and if they didn't there would BE no story... But I didn't need to tell the readers about them. It's like the 5-year-old's version of a story, where they repeat everything in all it's boring detail, as opposed to the adult's version, where they hit the high points and know that you'll fill in the other stuff yourself.

Of course, that's the trick. What stuff can you leave to the reader to fill in, and what can't you? This is the big, massive, gargantuan issue of Significance, something that I'm still coming to grips with in practice though I know the theory - and something I'll elaborate on next time ;)

PS. Because I love it so much, because the timing was perfect when I read it and things clicked in my head, and because it's just such a great example of a perfectly paced pacey book, I highly recommend Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found as the book that taught me about how to do pace right. Of course, whether or not I've learnt my lesson well is another matter! :D

This Week: A TP Update

Hello, everyone! I'm officially back! Very happy to be here again :)

Rest assured, I'm working on some more meaty articles to feed to you soon, but I thought that in the meantime I'd kick the week off with a nice, easy update.

Basically, the middle ten days of June were out of action for exams and assessment. Thankfully, that is all over and passed and went much better than expected (though this is usually the case, so you'd think I'd learn to raise my expectations!), and now I can use the last ten days of June for writing again. Ah, such symmetry! :D

Possibly the biggest news is that I'm thinking of entering a competition for a manuscript assessment. The only catch (besides trying to 'describe creatively' what makes my manuscript stand out from the rest in under 100 words *pulls face*) is that I don't actually have a manuscript. So I'm making a mad dash and aiming to get TP finished by the end of July. I'm currently just shy of 18,000 words, so that's another ~65,000 words in a little over four weeks. Can we all say 'eek!'?

Really, though, I can't wait to have the draft finished. I want to know what the story is /about/, already, and how it's going to work.

What?! (I can hear the screams from here.) You don't know what it's about?

:D

Yes, I know what it's about. But only in general terms. I love this description of the writing process that Lisa Shearin posted:

First drafts are for learning what your novel is about. Revisions are for working with that knowledge to enlarge or enhance an idea, or reform it.

I love it. But it also means that trying to figure out what makes my story 'stand out' is jolly difficult without a complete first draft. Unfortunately, I only have until July 4 to enter the competition... And I don't think I'm going to have a full draft by then.

However, I am aiming for 5 chapters a week, and another 10 chapters should put me nearly at the middle of the book. So that should give me at least something more to work with than I have now :D

Wish me luck!

Welcome to my Sidebar: Pub Rants

Yes, I know, I owe you all a series article. It's coming, I promise. I'm just currently bogged down with chemistry reports, and it's infesting my brain...

"A very nice literary agent indulges in polite rants about queries, writers, and the publishing industry."

Today's blog is agent Kirstin Nelson's blog, Pub Rants. Round of applause, everyone! :D

Who: Kirstin Nelson is the founder of the Nelson Literary Agency, which she founded in 2002. She was an agent for several years before that, and has proven herself a success with a number of her recent representations doing extremely well on the NY Best Sellers lists. She represents women's fiction, romance, literary, fantasy & science fiction, YA and MG, with what seems to be a strong (if unintentional, according to her blog) trend towards spunky female characters, a la Raine Benares from Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found.

What: Pub Rants is what I call an 'industry blog'. It's chock full of useful information on the publishing industry, as seen by an agent. There are real-live successful query letters, extensive article series on Agenting 101 and Blog Pitching, and posts on every topic remotely connected to the day-to-day business world of an agent.

Where: Here, or here: http://pubrants.blogspot.com/

Why: This is the very first industry blog I began to read regularly. I simply adore the wealth of information that Kirstin divulges in a friendly, easy-to-read, no-nonsense manner. Honestly, if you're even remotely considering publishing, devouring a couple of industry blogs, archive and all, is a must - and this is a fabulous, easy-to-access blog to start with. :)

When: Irregularly, at least twice weekly on weekdays and up to five times a week on weekdays.

Lisa Shearin on Editing

So, how's this for timing!

Author Lisa Shearin has just started posting a series of articles on her blog about the revision process when an agent and editor are involved. She speaks from personal experience, drawing examples from her first novel, Magic Lost, Trouble Found.

Personally, I found it very interesting to see what kind of things an editor will look at changing in your manuscript. If you think it might be interesting, check out the first article here in the March archives.

A New Method

Sorry to have been scarce lately. A last minute course change at uni and the associated dilemmas has left me reeling and my writing stumped.

But anyway.



So, at the beginning of last week I read this awesome entry in Lisa Shearin's (author of Magic Lost, Trouble Found) blog. I looked at the pictures and went - :O that's awesome! Post-it notes!!

They're like index cards, except smaller, cheaper and sticky. As in, they can stick on things. Like walls. And wardrobes. And then you can see them all at once, and get a nice clear picture of how things are going, and they don't take up massive amounts of space on the floor like index cards.

As soon as I can, I'll upload some picture of my new wardrobe decorations O:)

I'm in love :)

And of course, the other major benefit is that they come in multiple colours and sizes - and multicoloured post-it notes are much MUCH cheaper than multi-coloured index cards. Why do I want multi-coloureds? Editing, of course...


Editing. Scheduled for Next Week. How exciting and terrifying, all at once :)


To make up for my lack of posts last week, I'll post twice this week. Although, despite the fact I'd like to think that the reason I've not received horrible emails asking why I haven't posted is because you're all lovely, patient people, I suspect it's actually because I'm speaking to a void.... Do correct me if I'm wrong and you're really out there reading :D

Later this week: Preparing to edit, and pictures of my shiny post-it notes.