Writing Wednesdays - What to Write

So I've got up to day fifteen on my writing course - I hope it's helpful for people to see how it goes together, what happens as I construct an idea and develop characters and the worlds that they inhabit.  I'll be reviewing the entire thing on the fifth of November, but first I thought I'd return to the idea of what to write.

This is something I've already looked at here: http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/writing-wednesdays-what-to-write-tips-1.html - where I said quite simply that you should write what you want to read.  I stick by that, but thought I should maybe provide some more tips.

So here are my top tips for deciding what to write:

1.  Write what you want to read.  If you aren't interested in it, then you won't want to finish it, and the readers will be able to tell you're bored.

2. Write a genre that you love.  You know it well, and it's familiar to you.  You already have some idea of how these stories fit together, you know how they work and you enjoy reading it.  If you get stuck, this can help you to work out where to go next.

2b.  But try and put your own spin on it.  Is there a trope there that annoys you? Do you love reading fantasy but get sick of damsels in distress? This is your chance to fix it.

3.  Write what you know, covering your experiences. This works well, because you already know all about it.  You know what will happen (even if it's an adapted version), and the characters in it are familiar to you (still, be careful not to offend any friends!)

4. Write what you have to.  Sometimes there is a story in your head that you just need to get down, and it won't leave you alone.  If you have a story like this, you'll know.  Get it down, and it'll be easier.

5.  Write to work out what happens next.  Stories don't pop into our head fully formed.  If a concept intrigues you, then write it to work out what will happen.

6.  Write something for someone you care about - this often works for short stories, but can work for longer pieces.  You know the individual, and you know what they like.  You can make it as a gift, and by giving it to them, it'll be a present that they will treasure, and it will mean that it will be read.

7.  Write your dreams.  Work out what you would like to happen, create the worlds that you dream of, and have fun with it.  This is particularly good when you're starting out, to get ideas together and carrying a story from start to finish.

8.  Write your fears and your insecurities.  Write about the dark things that bother you.  This can be difficult, and you need to be careful not to push yourself into something you aren't comfortable with, but  it can really grab the reader if you put your own concerns into a character's mouth - you can understand these fears and put them across well.

9. Ask people for prompts.  Ask your friends for an idea, and try to put it down on paper - perhaps "A walk on the beach" or "Two married spies on holiday".  Use it as a start for a short story, and see if it can go from there.

10.  Write what you see.  Either go to a crowded place and look for interesting characters, making some notes, or look up pictures of interesting places - for horror perhaps look up pictures of abandoned buildings, or whatever else you would find helpful - it might help to spark an idea.

So there we go, top ten tips for what to write if you have no ideas.  Write what you want to read, a genre you love (with its own unique twist, what you know, what you have to, to work out what will happen, for those you care about, your dreams, your fears, to fill prompts, or write what you see. 

Best of luck with getting some ideas, and turning them into some words.   Feel free to suggest some prompts for me!

Writing Wednesdays - October Short Story Course #3

This is the final block of the October Short Story Course - you can follow my work on it on tumblr:  jchasestories.tumblr.com.   The previous two blocks can be found here (http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/writing-wednesdays-october-short-story.html - days 1-10) and here (http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/writing-wednesdays-october-short-story.html days 11-21).  Now there are ten days left, and we are certainly on the home stretch.

By the time you reach here, your characters and world have been designed.  Your plot is sorted, and you have already written 4,200 words - very nearly half way there.  Just a little further to go!

Day Twenty Two:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Design a floor plan in whatever way you would like of any buildings which it would be helpful for you to have a plan for.

Day Twenty Three:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Make a collage for each of your main characters, including at least five pictures for each - perfectly acceptable to do this on pinterest, or using a computer.

Day Twenty Four:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Write what each character's main ambition is, and what their dream life would be.  Also write which super power would suit them, and which wish they would have granted if they were able to choose - do this in the voice of the character in question.

Day Twenty Five:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project:  What would each of your characters want for Christmas (or another similar gift-exchanging occasion) and what would they give to their fellow characters? What is the best present they ever received? What is the worst?  Write a short and sweet scene of Christmas/gift exchange for them – trying to make their attitudes towards each other exactly how it is currently in your plot. (I'd be interested to see this work if your characters are currently trying to murder each other).

Day Twenty Six:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Make a school report card for each character commenting on how they did or would do in each subject that they studied or would take given the chance.  Who was the best pupil? Who was the worst?

Day Twenty Seven:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Write a diary entry from each character's point of view about what you wrote yesterday in the main story.  Try and explain how they are feeling.  50-100 words for each story.

Day Twenty Eight:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Write a page or so of an interview, with you speaking directly to your characters - praising and blaming them for what has happened.  This should help you let off steam, see any minor issues, and completely destroy the fourth wall (the barrier between you and your characters, stopping them and you from conversing normally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall)

Day Twenty Nine:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Give your characters a reward, something that they deserve but don't get in your story.  Maybe it's a kiss, maybe it's a happy ending.  But write something to thank them for what has happened this month, and put your mind at ease about any hanging threads.  Alternatively, use this to torture them for all the problems they have caused this month.

Day Thirty:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: : Make a word cloud of your story using wordle and consider if it captures the ideas you'd like: http://www.wordle.net/

Day Thirty One:

Last day.  Finish the story.  What has each character learned from it? Have they become a better or worse person?  Has their life changed? Has their outlook on life changed?  Finally, and most importantly, having made these characters from nothing in a month, do you now agree that you can write fiction?

There we go.  That's the end of the course.  All that would be left now would be to edit what you have, redrafting as you go, until you end up with a piece you are happy with.  Then it is yours to do with what you wish!

If you've really enjoyed this month's activities, why not give Nanowrimo a go in November?  That's a 50,000 word story in a month, so you'll have to write 1666 words a day - a bit of a jump up, but with what you've managed this month it is perfectly doable.  Maybe you can even carry on with the story you have been writing?  I'll be taking part in Nano, trying to meet the wordcount, and hope to see you there.

Writing Wednesdays - October Short Story Course #2

So last week, I introduced the October Short Story Course that I plan to do throughout this month (http://jchasestories.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/writing-wednesdays-october-short-story.html for the less focused among you) and laid out the plans for the first ten days, by the end of which you have your main characters and setting sorted, and have begun to work on the plot.  Today, we'll be looking at days eleven to twenty one.  As I said, the end goal of this project is to have a short story of about ten thousand words from nothing within the course of November.

Every day I will be putting up my work on tumblr at jchasestories.tumblr.com, and mentioning what I've been up to on twitter.  Now, on with the course:

Day Eleven:

Write between two to four of your scenes from yestarday out in name: *action* format, i.e.

Samuel: *opens door to see Oliver sat on the couch* You stayed then?

Oliver: *glances up* I guess.  Something wrong?

Samuel: Yeh... *walks over* Look, about last night...

Try and ensure you make the scene long enough to generate an amount of interaction, and decide which of the scenes is your favorite.  Go back to your character profiles, and adapt them if necessary.

Day Twelve:

Write your favourite scene from yesterday out in full, trying to keep it dynamic and interesting - aim for a minimum of 500 words.

Day Thirteen:

Draw out a table (using MS Word, XMiind, MS Excel, paper or whatever else you find helpful) with each major event in your plot on a new row.  Give each of your main characters a column, and fill in how they feel and respond to each development.

Day Fourteen:

Choose a song for each character, and make a note of why.  Write 50-100 words about each character's development over the plot, and how you feel about them - are they alive to you?

Day Fifteen:

Write in character, having each character explain what happened in the scene from the 12th in their own voice (If any characters weren't involve, just show how they would report it if they had been there).  This gives you the opportunity to get to grips with each character's dialogue, attitude, accent, truthfulness etc.  With this, and the work from the sixth, choose your point of view to work from.

Day Sixteen:

Today's the day you have been waiting for (or dreading) - we start writing the story.  Aim for about 700 words every day.  Alongside this, side projects will run daily, helping you to fully flesh out and develop your characters.  Today's side project: do a personality test, answering as each of your main characters (I'll probably do http://personality-testing.info/tests/OEJTS/).  Do the results you get surprise you? 

Day Seventeen:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Which animal do you think each of your characters would be and why? 50-100 words for each, try not to get too hung up on detail, or to be too predictable.

Day Eighteen:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project:  Write a brief timeline for each character, working out the age they are when key events occur, and the effect these events have on their personalities.

Day Nineteen:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Describe one of your main character's living spaces (and work spaces if applicable) in 50-250 words.  What do they have there? What does it mean to the character?  What is their favorite possession? What is most precious to them? What do they wish they had?  Is there anything that they wish wasn't there?

Day Twenty:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Repeat the side project from the nineteenth, picking out a different character's life to explore.  Be careful to consider how the character's personality affects their living space.

Day Twenty One:

Writing - approximately 700 words.  Today's side project: Unsurprisingly, we are doing the same as for the previous two days, for the last remaining main character.

Writing Wednesdays - October Short Story Course #1

In October I plan to put up daily writing prompts, with the eventual aim of creating a writing course for across the month, with the hope that if you follow it you would end the month with a short story of about ten thousand words.  Not bad for a month's work right?  For me, this is going to be a way of preparing for Nanowrimo.

Today's blog entry is the steps for the first tendays, with the next two entries covering the rest of the available time.  I'll be posting daily reminders on twitter using the hashtag #OctoberShortStoryCourse, and posting my work on my tumblr jchasestories.tumblr.com.

Day One:

Start of the writing course.  Find a word to describe the atmosphere of your setting (horror? dark? cyberpunk?) and write a fifty to two hundred word description of the setting.

Day Two:

Select eight names that you think would suit people in your world (this gets the horrible naming problem out of the way early on, you can always revise them if you don't like them).  Then make short character descriptions (ten words or less - a young baker with a passion for renaissance sculpture, a firefighter who is recovering from a broken heart etc...), pair them up to the names, and pick out three to be your main characters (maybe two protagonists and an antagonist, but that's your choice).

Day Three:

For at least your three main characters, and any others you want to include make a short profile (approximately 150 words for each character: their name, age, title/rank, appearance, sexuality, likes, dislikes, fears, ambitions, clothes, personality and history.  Include any other information you feel is vital.

Day Four:

Draw a diagram of your characters and the relationships between them, who they like/dislike, any siblings, relationships between them etc.

Day Five:

Write a one sentence summary of your story, and then try to expand it to a paragraph (no more than five sentences, after all this is a short story!)  Also write three 100 word introductions between your characters: MC1 meeting MC2, MC2 meeting MC3 and MC3 meeting MC1. 

Day Six:

Check that your plot fits the relationships, and if not revise one or the other.  Then write a 100 to 200 word plot overview from the point of view of each main character - how do they feel about the events? What do they gain from the plot, what do they do?  How do they feel at the start, and how do they feel at the end?

Day Seven:

We've got to the end of the first week, and it's time to deal with fiddly questions about the setting.  This is just a list of questions I tend to use to establish my world, feel free to make up your own questions that will help you with yours?

- What is the weather like? What seasons are there?

- How do the economy and political system work?

- What are the religious and/or scientific ideas that dominate thinking?

- What is the history of the society?

- What are typical education levels? Who has more education? Who has less?

- Are there any superstitions? If there is magic, how does it function?

- What is the state of medicine? How are disabilities treated?

- Are there a variety of cultures? How are they treated? How about outsiders?

- What are the roles of different groups? Is social status fixed?

- Which professions are there?

- What do buildings look like?

- What are the rules linked to marriage/homosexuality?

By the end of today, you should have a better view of how society functions.

Day Eight:

What are the daily routines of your MCs?  Write down a typical day for them, including what they eat and how they dress, their hobbies and occupations?

We are now over a week in, and we have our characters and world developed!  We are doing great.  Let's carry on.

Day Nine:

Draw a sketch of your main characters - it doesn't matter how good or bad it is, just so you have a picture of them.  Check that your work so far fits with the plot overview, and if not modify the overview.

Day Ten:

Choose three or four short scenes - all but one of which should be things that happen before your story starts.  The final one can be from the body of the story if you wish.  Write out a paragraph about what happens, considering how characters interact and the personalities of your different characters.

Writing Wednesdays - Time Management

This blog post is being written a little late today, which is rather unfortunate as the topic I'm going to be looking at is time management - suggested to me by the marvelous L.J Hamlin whose writing can be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/L.J-Hamlin/e/B00B1F6318.

Time management can be something that is hard to do about even the most important things, let alone writing which is often relegated to the role of hobby, simply  because of how busy people find themselves and how little time they have free.  Therefore, finding time to write when you can is crucial but a lot of aspiring authors just find it impossible to catch a free moment. 

I'm particularly aware of this right now as I have just begun a new job which is meaning that I have far less free time, but I am determined that I will still write.  Therefore this blog post is as much about me making a plan of action for myself as giving advice.

For time management, the main thing is prioritising - you won't have enough hours in the day to get done every single thing that you want to get done.  Therefore you need to decide which things you want to get done most urgently, and what needs to be done.  Make a numbered list, or use websites such as workflowy (https://workflowy.com) or Habitrpg (https://habitrpg.com) to prioritize and record your achievements.  Some people find that they don't know where there time is going, and one possible way of tackling this is to make a chart for a day or a week, listing each hour, and fill in what you were doing at that time, be it working, cooking or watching television.  Then you can look back, and see if there is any time you have available that you had missed previously. 

That isn't to say not to let yourself relax.  Relaxing is really important.  It's just worth making sure that when you are relaxing, you are doing it in the way that you want to.  If you want to include writing in your free time then working out what free time you have is a great start.

Now, about writing: First off, it's a good idea to consider when you might have time to write - if you know you're working late all week, maybe think about the weekend.  If you have young children, maybe after they've gone to bed - or while they're watching television.  It all depends on your personal circumstances.  If you can manage to find a few hours available, and go to somewhere quiet - a coffee shop, or a public library if you are looking for somewhere peaceful and free to visit, that's fantastic.  But if all you can get is the odd few minutes, don't worry.  That's time enough to get down a few lines of dialogue, or notes as to how a scene is going to go.

Carrying down a notebook to jot ideas in can be helpful here - it even gives you a chance to put down some thoughts if you find yourself with some free time in the middle of the day which you don't want to waste.  Make notes when you can, and when you get more time, you can write them into stories.

You might have had a look at your timetable and found that you have absolutely no spare time at all, and if so then you might have to decide to let writing take a back seat whilst you deal with everything else you have going on.  At some point you will need spare time, but if you just don't have it at the moment, that doesn't mean you have to give up on being a writer.  You can still think of ideas and stories, flesh out worlds and work out dialogue, and scribble it down when you get the chance.  Actually writing a novel might be out of the picture for you for now, but a chance may occur later.

Short stories might work better in this particular situation.  Or, when you get to November, just say to forget it and let yourself take part in Nanowrimo, immersing yourself in writing for a month.  At the end of it, even if you didn't break fifty thousand, you may have written far more than you thought was possible, and have learned exactly what it is that you can temporarily delay to give yourself a chance to write.

So:

- List priorities

- Work out when you have time

- Carry a notebook

- Think about ideas

- Set aside time

Best of luck!

Writing Wednesdays - What to Write Tips 1

Sometimes it can be hard to work out what it is that you want to write - you might have a lot of ideas buzzing around your head, or otherwise none at all.  This is where I turn to some vital advice - write what you want to read.  Simple huh?

Well, it works.  If you write something that you don't like, or wouldn't be interested in, then your writing will be more dull.  Your heart isn't in it, and that's going to come through to the reader as well.  If you aren't enjoying it, why on earth would they?

Whereas if you write something that you would like to read, you're going to be more engaged.  You will actually want to get it down, so that you can read it.  You'll be able to think things through, and you'll be interested in the project.

The other side to this is that it can be very hard to get your work out there, especially if it is with your own characters.  You might self publish and find it takes a while to get popular, or you might just not have the confidence to get the work out there.  But if it is something that you enjoyed writing, and which you like reading, then it is in no way wasted. 

So that's my advice as to what to write - write something that you would like to read, and then it has at least one fan.  You'll enjoy writing it a lot more, and that enjoyment will come through.

A short and simple blog post, for a short and simple idea. 

Now, a quick challenge for you: Think of something you'd like to read, and write some of it.  Even if you just write  a paragraph, give it a go right now and let me know how it goes!

Writing Wednesdays - Inspiration

Today, we're going to be looking at inspiration. 

Inspiration is something that is always helpful to have - when you are inspired for a particular idea, character or scene, words seem to come a lot more easily, and you can get a story flowing, developing concepts and getting the idea down.  Rather than being stuck for hours on the same paragraph, you can find pages flow from your fingers - or else that you have a mental vision at least of how you want it to go.  Inspiration is great.

Having said that, I'm going to stress something I've said before: You can't wait for inspiration.  You just can't.  Inspiration is not always going to be there, and if you tell yourself that you can only write something when you are inspired to do so, you're never going to get it done.  It's important to get words down, even if it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, because at least then you have something to improve.

These tips are to be done alongside your normal writing, not instead of it.

If you're anything like me, inspiration strikes at the absolutely worst times imaginable.  Just before bed last night I worked out the plot of a six part story I promised a friend, and when I'm running I often get ideas.  Other times that inspiration sneaks up on you are when you are in the shower, on the toilet, driving, or otherwise as far away as possible from your computer/writing materials.  This absolutely sucks.

So carry something with you, so you can jot down those ideas.  Make notes - either carry a notebook around, or download an app on your phone or something.  Personally I find the ColorNote app: http://www.colornote.com/ really  helpful, but if you don't have a phone that it will work on, just type ideas into a blank text, or scrawl them down on paper.  If you find showers are the place you get your best ideas, you forget them by the time you've stepped out and you don't mind looking like a bit of an idiot, leave a non-washable pen in reach.  If you have something you just /have/ to write down then and there, write it on your arm or something.

If you look, there is inspiration all around you - just jot down things you find inspiring or interesting.  There might be a mannerism of someone you know, or a piece of dialogue you hear that sparks ideas, and noting them down for later can be great.  One thing though - do be careful you aren't just caricaturing your friends, because that way lies arguments and distress.  You can take inspiration from people you know, just if you want to stay in contact with that person, it's a good idea not to make an obvious version of them into the villain of your piece (unless they ask for that!).

Plus it's much more original to mix together a variety of people, rather than just stealing someone you know.  That way you can combine things, won't cause offence, and can develop ideas - so that rather than thinking about that particular individual you know, you can be thinking about your character and how they would react with the combination of characteristics they possess.

Sometimes, you find yourself stuck on a particular scene, and with ideas for other areas of the story.  Don't be afraid to jump ahead and work on them, even if it will mean you need to revise them later. You can always just put down brief notes.  If you have inspiration, it often is best to use it - otherwise by the time you get to that scene, your ideas might have vanished.

One final tip I would give would be to read.  Books that have been published must have something in them that made them desirable (even if what it is that was desirable about them isn't always clear), and they might help.  The more you read, the more you will be aware of the kind of thing that you want to read, and the more you'll know what it is you want to write - come back next week for more on that topic.