M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: Writer Problems 01/27/15

Posted on January 28, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Writer Problems: My hero just fell in the river, and he’s covered in iron… He’a gonna sink. He can take off his coat and live, but he really likes the coat. And he is immortal.

More Writer Problems: So technically, I can use the scene to show everyone how his immortality works! But how do I make it not be anything like Highlander?

These are problems only writers understand. They keep us awake at night and moving slowly in the morning. I love them because it just means when I solve them, the story is going to be better. I get nervous when I don’t have any problems because I fear it will be a boring story.

I figured today I would list some of the major problems I’ve dealt with in all my published/to-be-published stories, just to let everyone know that your story doesn’t have to be changed around just because you’ve hit a snag.

A Prophecy Forgotten: What happens to a angel’s clothing when it morphs into a human? Believe it or not, I had to rewrite all those parts. In the original story, the clothing magically changed into human clothes, but I wasn’t buying it, and I knew my audience wouldn’t either.

Out of the Shadows: How will Davian’s small army be able to sneak up on the City of Ezzer? Thank goodness Maurice still owned the Treetop Inn. Oh, and I had access to dragons…

The Survivor: My biggest problem was figuring out how to pull off the idea that Great Britain secretly tested its first airship 30 years before they actually built an airship, mainly because the story started with the airship crashing…

The Cherubian, the Lindworm, and the Portal: (an Elysian Chronicles short story): I had to figure out how Davian could sabotage a trebuchet in the middle of an enemy camp (at night, obviously) in such a way that the trebuchet would look completely operational until someone tried to use it…

The White Rider: (an Elysian Chronicles short story) I probably spent the most time trying to find a good location. I needed a city where my protagonist could walk to work and walk past an angel statue. (I needed it for symbolic purposes.) I settled on Boston with its Angel of the Waters statue.

The Witch Hunter: A blog post on this will happen soon, since this story is about to be published in The Big Bad Two villains anthology. My biggest problem: I realized two days before it was due that I needed to rewrite the whole thing in 1st person–only the main character had Alzheimer’s, so I had to write it in such a way that the audience could follow the story even though the main character couldn’t. It was a structural nightmare. 8,000 words 100% rewritten. 48 hours. I slept for only two of them.

Blue Lights: Wow, this was hard. My first psychological thriller that takes place on the moors of Dartmoor (Hound of the Baskervilles territory). I needed fog dark enough to blind my characters for a few moments while they rode in an open carriage, but it had to be realistic. Imagine my excitement when I came across “swaling”, which is the controlled burning they do on the moors…

The Death of Angelica Blackmore: My 19th century steampunk heroine simply couldn’t wear a Victorian dress and corset and leap across the rooftops of London at night… I gave her a modified ninja outfit because I needed her face covered…

What about you? What kinds of writing problems have you encountered and how did you solve them?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/26/15

Posted on January 27, 2015 by M. B. Weston

The ideas area starting to flow again, thanks in part to my friend, Raulston’s, comments on my post yesterday.

I’ve been writing my hero as more reactive than proactive. I’ve forgotten that he lives by a different code than the code of law because the people he is fighting are unknown to the law. (This will create conflict down the road, btw.) He will take more action at catching the villains.

He also has more skills, and Raulston was quick to remind me of that. Thanks to his comments (and to a few comments from the rest of you, including Adam), I was able to get the next scenes ironed out, and I was able to get a side character, JT, more face time. 🙂

Writing is such a solo process, it’s easy to forget that we writers need each other. Even JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis had the Inklings.

Thanks so much to all of you for your comments. It makes writing less lonely!

What about you? Are any of you involved in writers groups of some type? Who do you turn to for help?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/25/15

Posted on January 26, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Gotta admit last night’s writing session bordered on failure. To be clear, I wrote, thus fulfilling the letter of the “Write Every Day” New Year’s Eve resolution. Not quite sure if the spirit of the resolution felt satisfied, however.

I feel like Bilbo Baggins when he yells out, “Time! Time!” while playing riddles with Gollum. I need more time.

I also need the ideas to flow faster than they are. The muse ain’t talkin’ much on this one. I think I’ve figured out why:

The ideas start flowing when you are in the zone. because of the nature of how my time has been laid out these past couple of weeks, I haven’t had a lot of time to get in the writing zone. I did a post about being in the zone back on January 3rd, which details some of the reasons writers need “the zone.” I don’t just need time. I need big chunks of time.

I’m dealing with concepts that are new to me. I’ve never written about witches and magic. The good thing is, nothing I write will be cliched. Trust me, this stuff is original because I feel like Indiana Jones. I’m just making it up as I go along. In fact, I don’t want to be cliched. This is all make-believe, and I don’t want to make it look as though I am poking fun at or attacking anyone’s religion. I also have a character who can’t use magic trying to fight those who can, and that’s not as easy as it sounds, even with weapons…

I’m afraid no one will like it. New genre. New series. I have no idea if I’m doing it right and I don’t have series popularity to fall back on. Granted, I should just plow in through, but that little nagging doubt doesn’t seems to ever leave no matter how many books and short stories you’ve published.

My promise to myself and to you is that I will tackle the root of these issues and start being productive.

What about you? What keeps you stymied in your writing and how did you get out of it?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/24/15

Posted on January 25, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Yesterday, I wrote my characters into a corner… This happens to me quite often, and I am pretty sure that it happens to a lot of people. I actually wrote a blog post about it back in September called “Don’t Be Afraid to Write Your Characters Into Corners. That’s When Awesome Happens.” (Rather than retype all the suggestions for getting your characters out of holes, I posted the link.)

I’m definitely dealing with a problem regarding Michael’s inability to use magic while going up against those who can use magic. The concept presents a lot of “corners” he can get stuck in during the story.

Despite the difficulties, I’m not changing the concept of him not being able to use magic. It creates tension and tension turns pages. The reader needs to worry about what will happen next. The harder I make the story on my protagonist, the better the story will be.

Anyway, it looks like I’m going to have to really focus on Michael’s weapons collection a bit more. I’m currently dealing with giving him the logical, appropriate amount of weapons 1) that don’t weigh him down too much and 2) that don’t bulge through his coat. It’s a harder task than it seems.

How about you? Have you ever accidentally found your character stuck? How did you get him/her/it out of the situation?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: Plot Structure to the Rescue! 01/23/15

Posted on January 24, 2015 by M. B. Weston

In case you were wondering, typing on the floor of a bathroom in a hotel room is tedious work. I highly recommend sitting on the bathmat because cold tile will suck your body heat out of you. I also don’t recommend trying to sit on the toilet (lid closed of course). Your legs will go numb much faster. Fortunately, I’m in a large enough hotel bathroom that I can lean against the edge of the tub and stretch my legs out flat on the floor. (The rest of my family is sleeping in the hotel room, and I had to get my writing done somewhere…)

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I figured out that in order for me to discover more about what my villainess was up to, I was going to have to get inside the story. What I didn’t tell you was that I needed my hero, Michael Lodestone, to sneak into the living quarters of her accomplice. I fixed him up with lock-picking skills (because I’m the author, and I can give him whatever skills I need him to have, plus it makes sense) and sent him into the house. Surely, I decided, I would find what I needed to keep the story going.

Well, it sounded good in theory.

Maybe it was the cold tile, or the slow numbing of my gluteus squished beyond recognition, but I only managed to get some great back and forth conversation for a while. I couldn’t find anything worth finding, and neither could my hero. (Duh.)

Then I remembered: plot structure. The story arc! That lovely little thing we learn about in writing class and on writing blogs and at writing conferences. You know, the important how to write stuff we all eagerly pay attention to when we first start out.

I’ve got a few posts on plot structure in this website, but not as many as I had hoped. Here’s a quick breakdown of the backbone of all stories:

  • Introduction: Introduce your character and setting.
  • Inciting Incident (aka your hook): This is where the main conflict happens.
  • Rising action: This is where your character works toward solving the main conflict.
  • Plot point two: The part that spins the story to the climax. It’s the beginning of the third act if you like screenplay lingo.
  • Climax: Your character either wins or loses
  • Falling action: This is the part where you tie up all the lose ends in order to make the audience feel good.

Okay, that was rough. But here’s the big point. My exciting inciting incident technically occurred right before this section of the story, but I haven’t really explained it to my audience or my hero for that matter. (I know the end of the story. I just don’t yet know how my characters are going to get there.) Something bad is going to happen if this lady isn’t stopped, but my hero has no idea of her plans. Therefore, he has no reason to hurry and no real conflict, which makes for a boring story no one wants to read (or buy).

Once I took a good look at where my scene was within the story arc, I knew exactly what Michael needed to find in that room. He needed a reason to hurry. He needed a reason to go back on the hunt. He needed to find out that masses of people were going to die.

Oh look, blueprints just happened to appear on the table in the corner of the room! (I also added the table…) And, oh look, a shipping manifest…!

Michael now knows he needs to get his butt in gear.

And I need to get my mine off this hard bathroom tile before it goes completely numb.

How about you? Has looking at story structure every helped you figure out your story?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: Writing When the Muse Won’t Talk 01/22/15

Posted on January 23, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Writing deadlines and publishers don’t care if the muse decides to go on hiatus. I’ve got a deadline coming up (April 15th) and a stalled story. When ideas don’t come quickly, I don’t have a choice. I have to “get in there” and figure it out. (This is why I’m more of a pantser than a plotter. I seem to get ideas when I’m “in” the story, and that happens most when I write.)

I’ve wasted enough word count on dialogue that lets the audience know the necessary backstory. I don’t want to waste any more words without knowing a bit where I’m going.

I’ve been in this situation before. In my second novel, Out of the Shadows, I had my hero, Davian, walking around in the northern wilderness for two chapters while he tried to “find himself.” You know, really boring, symbolic stuff that Literature teachers just love that take up too many words and stall the action. (Can you see why I’m writing pulp now?) I wasted a good week or two on words I ended up deleting. (Correction: taking out of the story and pasting in my “deleted items” file.)

I don’t have time to waste words, so I had to go find my story without any help from the muse.

Here are a few things I’ve done and I do in these situations:

Use visuals. I once sat in front of a mural of an old Victorian street corner to help myself get into the scene and come up with a short story for Dark Oak’s soon-to-be published steampunk anthology, Dreams of Steam 5. I closed my eyes and put myself in the scene until I could find a story. (It’s called “The Death of Angelica Blackmore,” btw, and if you have read “The Survivor” or seen the videos where I tell the story, that might make you a little nervous.)

Last night, I pulled out the DVDs of all the pulp-ish movies that I own and stared at them for a bit, trying to get in an adventurous mood.

2015/01/img_4465.jpg

Figure out the essence of your story. I decided to look at each of the stories and figure out their main essence. Here is what I decided:
–Firefly – A group trying to keep to themselves and make a living, but unfortunately space is full of bad guys. And blue gloves.
–Indiana Jones – find the magic artifact before the bad guys get it.
–A-Team – restore your names while being hunted as fugitives
–Guardians – save the Galaxy without killing each other
–The Mummy – put the monster you awakened back in the box
–James Bond – save the world
–RED – Old spies showing the young spies how it’s done.

Do a quick character drive analysis. Knowing what drives your characters, what makes them do what they do, can often help you find your story.

I figured out that this Michael Lodestone story is not just about Michael hunting witches. It’s not a cat and mouse. This is two lions hunting each other, which totally changes the essence of the story. This is a chess game. Good and evil hunting each other in the dark corners of the modern world in a battle no one knows about. Michael is more aggressive than the modern superhero because he is actively looking to kill the bad guys rather than waiting for an excuse. The lead witch he is hunting has magic to her advantage (since he is not allowed to use it). He is the only person on earth who can take her life. May the games begin.

Muse? Who needs one?

How about you? What do you do to get ideas flowing when you are stalled?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: Creating a Villain 01/21/15

Posted on January 22, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Today’s writing session was all about the villain.

All too often, especially in the urban fantasy pulp novella I’m working on, the villain drives the story line. If all the villains in New York City decided to take a week off, Spider Man wouldn’t have anything to do (and he would probably enjoy it). Batman exists specifically because the villains were managing mischief first. In order for me to get this story line together, I need to get to know my villain a bit better. (No the first guy wasn’t the real villain. He was just the front for the villain. It’s one of my stories, so you know there’s more beyond what I give you at first. Besides, I already killed him off. )

Today, I finished up a conversation between my heroes about said villain, and I really sat down and started thinking through a few things. Without giving away too many spoilers…

  • I had to refer to a specific Grimm’s fairy tale–a lot.
  • I also had to analyze the magical powers of a certain item in said fairy tale.
  • I had to figure out the basic personality type of the villain in the tale based on the limited information given. I’m seeing 1) a lust for power and 2) vanity. The main problem I’m still working through deals with the vanity. Was said vanity simply a knowledge that beauty brings power and actually part of the quest for power, or was it an actual vanity problem? This becomes extremely important because vanity is a weaknesses that can be exploited, and my hero isn’t allowed to use magic when he hunts and fights these witches. He needs all the help he can get.
  • Based on the personality type and on the fact this person is a witch from fairy tales who has been around for quite a while, I had to figure out what on earth she is doing in modern-day New Orleans and what her goals are. At first, I thought I would go with the power idea, so I researched “the world’s most powerful women.” Basically all of them were CEOs, which sounds like far too much work for this character, so I had to figure out something different. She doesn’t want to work; she’s not used to it. I kind of turned it around when I realized she would be like the devil–really evil and manipulative. I thought of Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate, and that definitely got things rolling in a better direction. This lady gathers secrets about people for use later. She feeds off the weak. She gives people what they want or need and earns their loyalty. She won’t waste her time becoming a CEO because they are coming to her. I’m not quite sure of her outward face, but I’m sure she’s behind a false charity of some sort.

Now, I’ve got to figure out her next plan of action. That, and she probably needs a name, but that can wait. I don’t know her country of origin yet. I think she was actually around a while before the fairy tales were developed, so that might require research.

:::looking around:::  Muse? Oh muse?

:::shaking my head::: Where is she when you need her? (And she’d better show up because I need to get about 13,000 words done in 9 days and I need a more concrete story line.)

How about you. How much time do you spend on your villain?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/20/15

Posted on January 21, 2015 by M. B. Weston

Good writing requires a good night of sleep–at least once a week.

Writing–especially on deadline–requires not sleeping.

When these two laws of natures collide, the results can be either hilarious or tragic depending on your sense of humor.

I need sleep, but I need to write. Sometimes i feel like these two truths shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the same universe.

Yes, I wrote today. But I fell asleep twice doing it. There has to be a better way. Well, on that doesn’t include hijacking Dr. Who’s Tardis.

Really what it means is sacrifice. That, and I’m going to have to start being more aware of how I’m spending my time.

Hmmm… I must ponder this more–after coffee. I will make this work.

How about you? Have you ever just felt like you don’t have enough time to make good writing happen?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/19/15

Posted on January 20, 2015 by M. B. Weston

On of the hard parts of writing is balancing writing time with getting all those little administrative things done, such as answering emails and Facebook messages or doing bills and balancing bank recs. I mean, seriously, if I have a choice between escaping into a fantasy world of good verses evil that I get to create myself or entering my new purchases into Quickbooks (or worse yet, fold clothes), what do you think I’m going to choose?

Today I chose to do an hour of bank stuff. This sounds easy, but remember that every debit card purchase has to be recorded in the check register. That, and I’m in charge of the whole household’s bank accounts plus my writing account. I also had to unpack from this weekend away. I will answer emails tomorrow. Possibly. I’m putting my phone’s timer on a hour and whatever I get done I get done.

Long story short, between getting bank stuff done and doing house work to catch up from vacation, I didn’t get much writing done. I did write, but not as much as I wanted to, and this came mostly in that little part between sleep and awake…

While I’m glad I am writing everyday (you’ve heard me talk about the benefits of this), I am starting to think I need to add either a fixed period of time or a word count to this. (Probably time more than word count because once I start editing, word count goes out the window.)

I can see myself getting lazy and cheating a bit by giving my writing spot the smallest time available and then blaming it on life. While there are just down days where that kind of thing is necessary, a whole week of them might fall under the heading of “excuse.” I’ve got a deadline to meet, and I need to finish the rough draft of this 30,000 word urban fantasy, pulp novella by January 31st. All of my weekends are take up in between now and then, so I have to get cracking during the week.

I’m going to ponder this problem more at work today and see what kind of solution I can come up with.

How about you? Do you have any writing goals you try to meet each day?

Toodles!

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M. B. Weston’s Writing Diary: 01/18/15

Posted on January 19, 2015 by M. B. Weston

I am so glad that the rough draft is supposed to be rough and that Microsoft Word comes equipped with both the undo button and the cut and paste function. Last night’s writing session was all about getting down the important parts of backstory through dialog (which has been in my head for a good week). I know that most of this dialog will be interspersed throughout the book, but since it’s in my head, I need to get it out. I can cut and paste later.

I often wonder, based on my writing process and how stories unfold in my brain, if I ever could have written before computers… (I probably would use a lot of paper.)

How about you? Do you have to write the story in order, or do you mind skipping around a bit of you need to write down a scene before it vanishes?

Next session, it looks as though I will be spending some time with my villain, figuring out the extent of her powers and goals and developing rules for magic within this urban fantasy pulp series…

Toodles!

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