Writers in the Storm

Angela Ackerman

Ah, Fall. Can you hear it, the melody of birds chirping? The rattle of sun-lit gold leaves in the breeze? And of course we can’t forget the click and clatter of keyboards as writers everywhere brainstorm, plot and organize their stories and characters for NANOWRIMO.

Oh...do I detect an awkward shuffle of feet? A side-eye glance? Perhaps it is because you haven’t yet begun prepping for the Big Day. Or maybe it’s because you’re heady with the idea of winging it, determined to let pure creativity spin from your fingertips when the hour strikes midnight on November 1st.

Well, while writing by the seat of your pants is part of the idea behind NaNoWriMo, here’s the truth. Each November, the literary floor is littered with the quivering, sugar-crashed bodies of writers whose plots died mid-steam. Why? Because a novel is still a novel, whether you take a month to write it, or a year. This means that even if you are a Pantser, the more you know about your hero and his motives going in, the stronger the book will be because his actions and choices within the story will have purpose.

Let’s talk turkey. What basic character brainstorming should be done on the hero in advance?

• The Basics: sex, age, job, ethnicity, physical description...whatever amount you need to give him shape (yes, even you Pantsers!)
• Personality: choosing a blend of positive attributes and negative flaws that together make your hero unique and memorable
• Talents, Skills and Quirks: what thing (or things) make your character remarkable and interesting? What special talent or skill does he have that will add dimension to the story itself?
• Moral Beliefs: understanding the compass that navigates his decisions and choices (MORALITY)
• Outer Motivation: what he wants most (the GOAL)
• Inner Motivation: why he wants it (satisfying a great NEED or DESIRE of his)
• Outer Conflict: the forces working against him (like the antagonist) so you can start thinking about how best to provide friction
• Inner Conflict: what inside him is holding him back or hurting his chances for success (his FEARS & FLAWS)
• Damage Assessment: who and what messed with your hero’s head enough to give him emotional wounds that have not healed, and what false beliefs does he carry as a result? (BACKSTORY, WOUND AND LIE)

How do we discover these things?

Simple: Backstory. I don’t mean the sludge of dumpy information that slows your story to a crawl, but the kind that is just for you, the author. Knowing what happened to your character in the past gives you a window into who he is now, on the doorstep of your novel. His history will help you figure out how he thinks and behaves, so you can write his actions authentically and pull readers into the story.

Old experiences, both good and bad, shape a hero, as do people who influence him along the way. Creating a backstory for your protagonist is the best way to create a fully fleshed, compelling hero that will make readers care. Brainstorming is important, even for secondary characters. And while you don’t have to go into as much detail, no one should walk into the story a blank slate. In real life, we all have a past, and our characters should too.

To write a character well, a writer must ask questions. What does he fear most? Who wounded him? What is missing from his life, and what does he need more than anything? What flaws of his trip him up and mess with his life? What strengths are within him, holding the key to achieving what he wants most? It’s all there in the backstory, waiting for you to find it!

Two tools to help you brainstorm character backstory

Character Profile Questionnaire: not your average “height, weight, hair color” type questions...instead, dig deeper into who your character is by asking probing questions about his fears, morals, secrets, emotional wounds, special skills and interests.

The Reverse Backstory Tool: a visual aid to help you see how your hero’s specific attributes, flaws, emotional wound (and lie the character believes about himself), as well as his deepest needs all tie into revealing inner motivation to achieve the outer goal.

(These are simply two of our Writers Helping Writers tools. For more, visit us here.)

Once you know your hero’s strengths and weaknesses (and his fatal flaw), you can plan exactly how to throw a gauntlet of challenges his way in your NaNoWriMo novel, forcing him to face his fears, shed his flaws and rise up to become the hero he was meant to be. (Character Arc, right there!)

Have you participated in NaNoWriMo before? Did you prepare ahead of time or dive in pants first?

Happy Brainstorming!

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach and co-author of three bestselling resources, The Emotion Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: a Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws. A proud indie author, her books are sourced by US universities and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors and psychologists around the world. Angela can be found at the popular site, Writers Helping Writers, which specializes in building innovative tools for writers that cannot be found elsewhere.

Heather Webb

The most detested word in the publishing industry, perhaps even in the English language (we writers might argue) is rejection. Even saying it aloud gives you a nasty swirling in your stomach. Whether it be from agents and editors, or readers and reviewers, the word itself embodies our deepest darkest fear—we aren’t good enough. When the “R’s” begin to pile up, we sink into the sludge that mires us deeper in our fears and that horrible message becomes louder, crippling us.

As I’m working on book three, this fear of the dreaded “R” sits on my chest like a fat cat—even after two contracted books at a large publisher. Even with the overwhelming good fortune of having a network of writer friends I’m proud and blessed to call my tribe. I’m pushing the envelope, you see. In my first novel I mashed up historical fiction, women’s fiction, and romance. My second, I skipped ahead to another era and fell in love with a lesser known artist figure and her struggles with madness. Now, I’m taking on a well-known story and turning it on its head. No biographical route for me this time.

Some serious genre pushing.

But WHY I ask myself? Why must I stick my neck out, push my craft to the point of almost physical pain. Why must I risk my publisher saying “no thank you” to this next book, and the one after that.

The answer is simple.

I can’t avoid the challenge, the tugging in my soul that pushes me to grow—in spite of the quaking in my knees. Reach higher, my heart says. Create better, it begs. INSPIRE MORE. Yet I don’t know if I will succeed and this terrifies me. I know many of you know what I’m talking about. You struggle as I do to get a hold of this nasty thing called fear. So what does one do?

Find Your Center
Work on the exercises that bring you to a deeper, centered you. For me, that’s running or biking until the jitters are gone and you can breathe again. Whether it be meditation or exercise, or sketching or journaling, every writer needs a way to disconnect from the voices in your head. Plus you get the added bonus of all that meditative activity adding years to your life.

Put the Risk in its Place
In the grand scheme of life, how does this risk rate? Is it life-threatening, or life-altering? Will it obliterate your reputation or your self-worth? Will it destroy important relationships around you? If the answer is no to these questions, POWER ON. Take the risk and don’t look back. If it’s yes, it’s time to evaluate that risk. Weigh the pros and cons and remember—regrets will follow you your entire life.

Use a Lifeline
My friends are my lifeline—both my writer buddies and my “real life” friends who understand nothing about the pressures in publishing. Sometimes you need both to balance you out, to remind you of all you have accomplished. To remind you of the simple goodness that is you.

Revel in the Risk
What is life without taking chances? A safe, boring affair that passes you by in a cloud of regret. Get a hold of your fear by the throat. REJECT HOW IT RULES YOUR LIFE, YOUR DECISIONS. Embrace the thrill of being bold, of striking out, and of being the best version of yourself—your best writer self. I’m trying like a mad dog. I hope you are, too.

I leave you with a beautiful poem by Emily Dickinson. It’s called HOPE.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

There is always HOPE and ADVENTURE when taking a risk. Don’t let the fear ruin all that beauty. I, for one, am choosing to banish it.

Have you ever branched out, far from the core safety of your tree to write something edgy or different? How did you tackle your fears?

About Heather

Heather Webb is an author, freelance editor, and blogger at award-winning writing sites WriterUnboxed.com and RomanceUniversity.org. Her first women’s historical, BECOMING JOSEPHINE, about the life and times of Josephine Bonaparte set to the backdrop of the tumultuous French Revolution, and her forthcoming novel, RODIN'S LOVER, about art, love, and the lines between obsession and madness releases from Penguin in January 2015.  Heather is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and she may also be found teaching craft-based or publishing industry courses at a local college. Find her on Twitter: @msheatherwebb or her website: www.heatherwebbauthor.com/

Janice Hardy

There’s something satisfying about finishing a first draft. The novel that’s been poking you in the brain for months is finally done and you can stand back and marvel at it like a new parent. And like a new baby, there’s an awful lot of mess to go with all that joy.

Protagonists who started out a little aimless and ended up with a stronger emotional journey, and now need to be tweaked. Subplots that were supposed to be a major part of the book that dead ended when another more interesting problem came along in chapter nine. That love interest who kept changing names. You know—perfectly normal first draft stuff.

After I’ve finished a first draft, I like to create an editorial map (also called an edit map, book map, or plot map) that quickly sums up every scene in my novel. It’s a huge help during my revision process, and allows me to easily see how my novel unfolds and where things happen.

Step One: Identify what happens in every scene or chapter

While you can certainly write as much or as little as you’d like, aim for the plot-driving goals and conflicts. These are the elements that are creating your novel’s plot.

• What is the POV character trying to do in this scene? (the goal)
• Why are they trying to do it? (the motivation for that goal)
• What’s in the way of them doing it? (the conflict)
• What happens if they don’t do it? (the stakes)
• What goes wrong (or right)? (how the story moves forward)
• What important plot or story elements are in the scene? (what you need to remember or what affects future scenes)

For an example, let’s take a peek at the opening scene of my teen novel The Shifter:

What is the POV character trying to do in this scene? Nya is trying to steal eggs for breakfast

Why are they trying to do it? She’s hungry and has no money to buy food

What’s in the way of them doing it? She’s caught by a night guard and the owner of the ranch

What happens if they don’t do it? She starves, and she might go to jail for stealing

What goes wrong (or right)? She runs for it, and uses her pain shifting ability to get away, which gets seen by two boys who alert the bad guys that she has this ability

What important plot or story elements are in the scene? She meets and helps Danello (who becomes a major secondary character and love interest), gets seen shifting pain by apprentices at the Healers’ League, and has a reason to go visit her sister at the Healers’ League in the morning, which is where she gets identified and comes to the bad guy’s notice.

Step Two: Summarize those basic elements

Once you know the details of the scene, summarize it in a way that will allow you to capture the essence of the scene in narrative form. This will be a great help when writing a future synopsis, as well as seeing how the story unfolds as a whole.

For example: Nya is stealing eggs for breakfast when she’s caught by a night guard and the owner of the chicken ranch. She makes a run for it, and in the process the night guard (Danello) is injured. Out of pity, she heals him and takes his pain, which is seen by two apprentices from the Healers’ League who will tell the Elders about her. She knows she’s just revealed her pain shifting ability to the wrong people. It’ll be a risk to go to her sister at the Healers’ League in the morning to get rid of her pain, but she has no choice.

Other things happen in this scene (some cute banter, an exchange of threats, a chase scene, some desperate bartering with witnesses), but the above paragraph captures the plot-driving elements that start the novel and trigger the rest of the plot. Without these elements, the novel would not have turned out as it did.

Step Three: Map out the entire novel

Go scene by scene and follow steps one and two for each scene. It can be a little time consuming, but well worth it. By the end, you’ll have a solid map of how your novel unfolds and what the critical plot elements are. You’ll easily see where/if a plot thread dead ends, or wanders off, or even any scenes that lack goals or conflict, which will make planning (and doing) your revisions that much easier. It’ll be clear what needs work and where.

Bonus Step: Map out any additional arcs you might want

Aside from the core plot elements, you can also add critical steps in a character arc, the pacing of reveals or discovery of clues or secrets, how multiples POVs affect each other, or whatever else you want to track. It can be woven into the narrative summary, or kept as a bullet point or subparagraph if that’s easier. You might even have two or three paragraphs per scene: One for the plot, one for the character arcs, and one for information you need, but the characters don’t know yet. Whatever format and details you need to move forward on the novel.

This additional information can be very useful for tracking subplots or inner conflicts, as well as mystery clues or what the antagonist is doing off-screen that’s affecting the protagonist. Timelines can also appear here if you need to know when events happens to ensure everything works together and you don’t have any 27-hour days.

The beauty of an editorial map is that it’s a quick and easy to reference summary of your novel. When you get stuck during revisions (and we all do, right?) you can flip over, see what happens when and where the story needs to go, and get yourself back on track.

Extra Bonus Step: Map out what revisions you want to make per scene

For those who really want to go the extra planning mile, I’ve found it particularly helpful to have a version with revision notes on it as well. That way I can see what I want to do and where, and be able to see how those changes affect the novel as a whole. This also makes it easy to update my editorial map as I revise.

A little preparation can go a long way and make the revision process easier and more productive. It’s a lot less hassle to find holes in the plot in a summary than realizing it after a beta read when you thought you were done. An editorial map is a handy tool to help you focus on the critical elements of your novel and keep your mind free for the fun creative work.

Do you use an editorial map? Do you think one might help you?

Looking for tips on planning or revising your novel? Check out my newest book Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, a series of self-guided workshops that help you turn your idea into a novel, or help you refine and tighten a first draft.

About Janice

Janice Hardy is the author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, where she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her novels include The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The first book in her Foundations of Fiction series, Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure is out now. She lives in Georgia with her husband, one yard zombie, three cats, and a very nervous freshwater eel. Find out more about writing at her site, Fiction University, or find her on Twitter @Janice_Hardy.