Choosing A Name For Your Story

One aspect of novel-writing that I find torturously difficult is actually naming the novel. I am notoriously bad at coming up with catchy titles. My first novel-length piece of writing – a fantasy story – remained nameless until I’d written, re-written and edited the whole thing, simply because I had no idea what to call it. In the end, I settled for the decidedly clunky title “The Land Beyond The Cliffs”. (Yes, really.) At the time, it was supposed to be temporary until I thought of something better, but that never happened, so the name stuck.

My point is that coming up with a title for a story can be extremely difficult. Sometimes the name comes with the story, like a two-for-one package, and you don’t have to think about it. And sometimes it doesn’t.

Since my first novel-naming fiasco, I’ve learned a thing or two about titling stories. Now, when I’m looking for potential names, I always think about the essence of what I’ve written – when you strip it down to the bones, what is it really about? What am I trying to say by writing it, consciously or unconsciously? Can that bare essence be expressed in a word, two words, three words?

If that doesn’t work, there are other options. You could name your story after the main character, if they are compelling and significant enough (and as long as their name isn’t Carrie). You could name it after a place in the story, if that place is central enough to the plot.

Or you could go down the symbolism route (one I’ll admit I’ve avoided thus far). By this, I mean naming your novel something that reflects its essence in an indirect, symbolic way. Like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Fault in Our Stars. I won’t say too much about this one because I don’t know enough yet. But if you feel like it could work for you, by all means try it.

If none of that works, and you find yourself completely, frustratingly incapable of creating a name for your story, you could always ask for external help. Let someone whose opinion you value – a family member or friend – read your work, or an extract of your work, and then ask them for suggestions. Even if they don’t hit on the perfect title, their ideas might set you on the track to finding it.

Good luck!

How important is vocabulary?

If you’re a writer, you’re most likely a reader. And if you’ve read widely, you will undoubtedly have a broad and diverse vocabulary. But how important is it, when writing a story, to show off the wonderfully long and obscure words in your arsenal?

Truthfully, I don’t think it’s important at all. Most of us have come across at least one book in our lives that contains so many kooky words, we have to dive for a dictionary every other minute while reading. If this happens too many times, we’re likely to get fed up and stop reading. After all, how can we relax into a story if we don’t understand a quarter of the words being used to tell it?

Novels (and short stories) are not vocabulary exhibitions. They have one function and one function only: to tell a story.

Why use “verisimilitude” when you mean “reality”? Save that for school essays – your English teacher will be delighted. But don’t stick it in a story just to show the reader you know it.

That’s not to say, of course, that you can’t use any unusual and eloquent words whatsoever. All I would say is to make sure you use them because they express what you want to convey, not just because they look impressive. Every word in a story has to carry its weight; every word needs a good reason to be there. If there’s a simple way to say something, then perfect. Go for it. If what you want to express requires a more complicated, lesser-known word, then so be it.

But any word so obscure that a reader has to pull themselves out of your story to look it up is a distraction, and you want to avoid these at all costs.

How To Stay Motivated During NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month 2014 begins tomorrow, and writers all over the world are preparing to start their novels, with the intention of having a first draft completed by the end of November. The next thirty days are going to be an uphill climb for those of us who are participating, and it’s practically guaranteed that we will all feel like giving up at one point or another. With that in mind, I’ve outlined a few motivational exercises below that will hopefully help you to keep going when your enthusiasm falters.

1. Imagine yourself writing “The End” on the last page of your manuscript. Finishing a novel is a unique and exhilarating experience. After all your hard work and painstaking effort, you finally get to hold the fruit of your labours in your hands and say: “I did it.” And the ecstatic happiness you feel at being able to say those words makes every struggle you went through along the way worth it. If you visualise this moment when the going gets tough, it will give you a much-needed boost of motivation.

2. Make a list. It’s inevitable that at some point in the writing process, negative voices will start to creep into your head, telling you that you can’t do this or that you might as well give up now because you’ll never make it. One way to banish these voices is to write out a list (a physical list, on paper, that’s very important) of all the reasons you think you can’t finish a novel in 30 days. Then read over the reasons you’ve come up with and find a solution for each one. For example, if one of your concerns is that you won’t have time to write with all the schoolwork you’ve got on your plate, you might consider waking up earlier in the morning to get some writing done before school, or sacrificing your hour of TV in the evening. It’s all a matter of externalising the negative thoughts that hold you back and concentrating, not on the problems themselves, but on what you can do to fix them.

3. Watch inspirational videos on YouTube. Writing is a solitary process, and while that’s mostly fine, it can make us feel very isolated sometimes. The amazing thing about NaNoWriMo is that it’s a global event. Thousands of other writers are doing the exact same thing as you, facing the exact same fears and doubts, and working towards the exact same goal. You’re not alone. And you don’t need to search too far for support; YouTube is full of videos offering tips and motivation to help you get through the month.

4. Reward yourself! Start a system by which you give yourself some kind of reward every time you meet your word count goals for the day. The reward could be anything from a cookie to an episode of your favourite show. This makes it easier for you to keep up with your short-term goals, and just concentrate on writing your novel one day at a time.

So those are my four motivational tips for NaNoWriMo. I hope you find them useful, and good luck in the month ahead! See you on the other side.

Planning and Plotting – how much is too much?

Every writer plans their novel to some degree before they write it. Some people are rigorous planners; others prefer to start writing with only a vague idea in their mind of where the story is going. Most of us are somewhere in between. Whatever works for you is fine, but if you’re new to the idea of planning and plotting, I’ve outlined a few guidelines below to help you.

1. Don’t plan excessively. Two or three years ago, I had an idea for a novel that I was ardently in love with. I was so excited by the prospect of writing it that I immediately began to plan the events of the book, major and minor. I ended up with thirty pages detailing everything that was going to happen in each chapter from beginning to end. And then I began to write. I got through two pages before I noticed something wasn’t working. I went back and started again, in a different tense this time. The same thing happened again. I tried over and over, but every time, I hit a wall. And eventually I realised; the story wasn’t working because I had planned the life out of it.

One of the best things about writing, remember, is that moment when you are so immersed in the story that it starts to pull you in unexpected and wonderful directions. The story is a living thing, and the writer’s job is to listen to what it wants and facilitate its demands. As much as we like to think that we have complete control, we don’t. Excessive planning serves only to kill your story, like a plant that has been over-watered.

2. Don’t begin a story with no planning whatsoever. Starting to write without the slightest idea of where you’re going is like setting out on a road trip across the country without a map; you will undoubtedly get lost. If your story has no direction and no structure, it will end up wandering in circles, and the odds of completing it are close to zero.

The method I use to plan my stories without over-planning them is as follows: I write down the numbers 1 to 15 on a piece of paper. If I know how the story starts, I fill in a short sentence, avoiding detail, beside number 1. If I know what happens after that, I fill in number 2, and so on. Sometimes I can only fill in four or five numbers, but even so, it gives me a sense of order and structure. The advantage of withholding detail is that nothing is tied down, or set in stone, and the order of events can be changed at any time if needs be.

As for character planning; some authors recommend new writers to take copious character notes, but I disagree. I think character notes can quickly turn into a list of adjectives, for example, Mary is arrogant, beautiful, selfish, vain, disdainful, mean, etc. The reason I discourage lists like these is that I don’t think all the adjectives in the world could ever come close to capturing the complexity of a human being. People are defined, not by what they are, but what they do. Therefore, what I usually do in order to get to know my characters is pretend that I am interviewing them. I’ll ask them questions such as: What are you most afraid of? What would you do in x situation? How far would you go to protect the people you love? When I know the answers to these and more questions in a similar vein, I know my characters. Some authors also suggest that you understand a character only when you know how they would react under pressure, which I think is true.

The key to planning, as with many other things, is balance. Planning too much is disastrous, and so is planning too little. You need to try and aim for somewhere in the middle. I hope this post will help you to plan your story more effectively. As always, feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

When is it time to start?

This might seem like an inconsequential question, but it’s well worth considering. How much time do you leave between the first spark of inspiration and the moment you actually start writing?

I find that it depends hugely on the idea. Sometimes, a writer will have a great idea for a story, but even after rigorous planning and plotting, find that they simply can’t write it. This, I believe, is usually a sign that either the idea isn’t ripe enough yet, or the writer isn’t ready to tackle it. A famous example of this is Stephen King’s book Under The Dome, which he first attempted to write in 1972 and then again under a different title in 1982, before it was finally published in 2009. When asked why he didn’t finish the book when he was first inspired to write it, King said: “the project was just too big for me”. This is a dramatic example (not all that many ideas require over 30 years to mature) but it’s important to know that this sort of thing can happen.

Some new writers, in their eagerness, make the deadly mistake of rushing into their story far too quickly. I did it myself many times. I urge you to resist the temptation. Dragging a fragile, light-sensitive idea into the blazing sun before it’s fully grown will, in most cases, kill it off.

In my experience, the best time to start writing is when both you and the idea are ready for each other. But how do you know when that is?

Like many things in writing, it’s instinctual. When I have an idea for a story, I usually let it build in my head for a few weeks. I keep my mind open, and let the plot and characters piece themselves roughly together. I certainly don’t attempt to start writing yet, though I do jot down the occasional half-coherent detail in a notebook. At this point, however, I am especially careful – I don’t want to write too much down, because I don’t want to set anything in stone. I want it to be fluid and changeable, at least for now. All I have are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and I don’t know what order they go in yet. If I try to glue them together, I might do it wrong and then I won’t be able to rearrange them again. So I just mull the idea over in my mind, until I’m confident that I have a fairly good understanding of how it’s going to work out. This doesn’t necessarily mean I know how my story will end – sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But I do know the characters involved, and what the beginning and middle will consist of (the latter often changes as I write, and that’s OK too).

So how long does it take for me to know those things? It depends. Usually between three weeks and two months, but every writer is different, so please don’t feel like you’ve gone wrong if this time frame doesn’t apply to you. When you’re finally ready to start writing, you’ll feel it. The author Nigel Watts suggested in his book Writing A Novel that most writers feel ready to start when their characters begin to feel three dimensional – in other words, when they begin to take on a life of their own. I agree, but again, this is not true for everybody.

So, to summarise: my advice is to let the idea simmer softly in your head for as long as it needs. Let it grow, let it flourish, and nurture it. Don’t try to start writing too soon, before the idea is ready, or you risk killing both it and your enthusiasm. Likewise, don’t start too late, or you might find that you’ve lost interest. When it’s the right time, when you can see a vague sketch of the jigsaw puzzle in your mind, you’ll know. And don’t worry if every piece isn’t in the right place straight away – you have plenty of time to rearrange them as you go along.

How do you know which tense and viewpoint to use?

Before you start working on a writing project, be it a short story or a novel, you need to decide which tense you’re going to write in and whose point of view the story will be told from. These two things are vitally important to get right, so I’d advise that you think about them carefully before making your choice. But how do you choose?

Let’s start with tense. You have two options here; past or present tense. Some writers stick to the same tense for everything they write, and others like to experiment with both. Traditionally, the past tense was predominantly used by authors of fiction, but the present tense is becoming ever more popular. I recommend that you choose whichever tense suits your story best. If the narrator of your story is an elderly man/woman reflecting on events from his/her life, the past tense is necessary. If your story is action-packed and would benefit from a sense of immediacy, the present tense might be your best bet. It all comes down to what feels natural. If you start writing a story and realise after a few pages that something doesn’t feel right, it could be that you’re using the wrong tense. The good news here is that when a tense isn’t working, you’ll feel it soon enough – it’s instinctive. And once you spot the problem early on, which is usually the case, it’s easy to fix. Go with your gut on this one.

Viewpoint is a little trickier. Do you tell your story from the point of view of one protagonist, from a dual perspective, or from multiple viewpoints? My advice is to do what the story demands. If your story takes place across a large geographical area, and there are things happening all over the place, one narrator alone won’t be able to see all the action firsthand and tell the reader about it; therefore, multiple viewpoints would be required. If, however, this is not the case, and your story is very focused on the personal and emotional journey of one specific character, there is no need to introduce more viewpoints. Again, once you start writing, it will be fairly clear whether or not you’re going in the right direction. You might begin a story with the intention of telling it from one character’s perspective, and then find to your surprise that another character in the story is compelling enough (and important enough to the plot) to be a viewpoint character also. The important thing is to make sure that all the necessary parts of your story are being told, whether it’s through one narrator or nine. But remember too that every viewpoint character in your story must have a valid reason for being one; in other words, seeing parts of the story from their perspective must be essential to the plot, or else readers will wonder why they were given access to that particular character’s inconsequential inner musings.

As I’ve said before, there is no formula for good writing. You just have to trust your instincts, and hope that they lead you down the right path.

Making Time To Write

As I’ve already said in a previous post, it’s important to write every day, whether it’s 10 words or 1,000. As teenagers, we spend a large part of our day in school, and then there’s homework and study too. It can be very hard to fit writing into our schedules, but it is possible, even if certain sacrifices need to be made.

I am an owl. My brain works best late at night, and so I tend to write between half ten and half eleven most nights (sometimes I get carried away and accidentally keep going until the early hours of the morning – a possible reason why I can never seem to keep my eyes open in maths). This is the routine that works for me, personally, but everyone has a different time of the day when they feel they are at their intellectual and creative peak. The key to establishing a good writing routine is to know when your time is.

If you’re a morning person, you could consider setting your alarm clock an hour early and getting your day’s writing out of the way before school. If you’re like me, and you shudder at the very idea of waking up before you absolutely have to, then you’re better off writing in the afternoon/evening after school.

It doesn’t matter what time of day you write at; the important thing is that you make the time and stick to your routine. It will make your life much easier if you write at the same time every day. And don’t accept excuses from yourself – putting it off for even one day will make it ten times harder to continue the next day. It’s hard, but if you grit your teeth and stick with it, the rewards are well worth the struggle.

More Than One Idea? Which One Do You Choose?

Some people find, when they’re ready to start writing, that they have two equally strong ideas competing for their attention. This can be both a blessing and a curse. How do you know which one to choose?

There are ways of finding out which idea you’d be better off writing first. The questions you need to ask yourself are: which one am I more passionate about? More excited about? Which one am I more ready for? In short, which one attracts me the most? If you still can’t decide between them, try flipping a coin. If it lands on heads, you have to write Idea 1; likewise with tails and Idea 2. Toss the coin, look at the result, and then think about how you feel. If it lands on heads and you feel a deep-down twinge of disappointment, you’ll know that Idea 2 is the way to go. Alternatively, if you breathe an inward sigh of relief when you see how the coin landed, stick with Idea 1. Sometimes a gut feeling is all that can lead you down the right path.

If none of the above works for you, if you are equally passionate about and ready to write both of your ideas, you could consider amalgamating the two. This may not work if your ideas are completely different types of stories, but it might be worth trying anyway in case they are somehow compatible. Take a few characters from here, a storyline from over there, and with a certain amount of tweaking, you can create a whole new story. This option is not for everyone; for some people, their ideas are too distinct and too developed individually to be mixed together.

Which brings me to my next suggestion: you could try writing both simultaneously. Please note that this is risky, as it can be overwhelming for a writer to have two projects on the go at once. It could also possibly dilute your passion for one or both of the ideas. Therefore, I’d advise that you only choose this option if you feel like you have no other choice (or if you’re up for a challenge).

The last thing I will say is that, if you’re up for a bit of trial and error, you could start writing both ideas and then decide after a couple of chapters which one you feel most drawn towards. You might find, by doing this, that one of the ideas wasn’t actually as magnificent as it seemed in your head (if only I had a penny for every time I’ve felt that way…), and the other one is even better than you imagined. In which case, the way forwards is clear.

I hope this advice helps. Please feel free to comment if you have any thoughts 🙂

The Search for Inspiration

So you’ve opened a blank Word document, you’re staring at all that empty white space, raring to go, but you need one more thing before you can start writing – something to write about.

Some people’s heads are constantly buzzing with new ideas; if you’re one of those, this post won’t apply to you. For the rest of us, finding inspiration is a somewhat more complicated process. The most important thing to know is that waiting for an idea to swoop down from the sky and claim you is not a good plan. This may happen to a writer occasionally (JK Rowling is a stellar example), but it’s rare, and if you want to write seriously, then you just don’t have time for that.

So, if waiting for your idea in shining armour to come and save you is out, how do you find something to write about?

People find inspiration in different ways. For me, it’s usually a case of observing everything that goes on around me and looking for story potential in it. As Nigel Watts said in his book Writing A Novel: “There is no shortage of material out there, it’s just a matter of adjusting your story antennae to ‘ultra-sensitive’.” Ideas can and do arise from seemingly ordinary events and occurrences. All you have to do is look at them through the eyes of a writer, and think about how you could alter or dramatise what you see to create an interesting story.

Something else I often do when I’m searching for inspiration is observe people. Human behaviour is endlessly fascinating. For me, at least, one of the best things about writing is that I get to explore all the different layers that make up a person – their past, their secrets, why they are the way they are, what they want in life and how far they will go to achieve it. A lot of the characters that end up in my stories have their genesis in strangers who pass me in the street or people I know well. This does not mean that everyone I write about is a slightly more colourful version of a living counterpart. It just means I notice one particular feature or mannerism or character trait in a person that stands out to me, and provides the seed from which a fully-fledged character will grow over time.

Ideas are everywhere, really. You just have to know where, and how, to look.

And if you are lucky enough to receive one of those much longed for Ideas From The Ether, thank the heavens and take it for all it’s worth.

What do you need to be a writer?

In his book On Writing, Stephen King said the following: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”

I agree wholeheartedly with this. The chances are, if you’re serious about writing, you will be doing both of those things already. In that case, this post might not relate to you. However, I think it’s worth talking about their crucial role in the development of a writer.

I have yet to hear of a writer who isn’t a reader. There’s a reason for that: reading is the experience that first introduces us to the power that words can have when they are strung together in different combinations to form a story. It is the first time we fall in love with the written word, and realise that we want to do for others what our favourite authors do for us – create characters and worlds that we can lose ourselves in, that make us laugh, make us cry, make us think.

But it goes beyond that, too; the following quote from Michael Morpurgo is the best I’ve ever encountered regarding the particular significance of reading to writers: “To read widely and deeply, to have soaked oneself in the words and ideas of other writers, to have seen what is possible and wonderful, to have listened to the music of their words and to have read the work of the masters must be a help for any writer discovering his own technique, her own voice.” With every book we read, we absorb another voice, another style, another set of techniques, all of which combine to influence our own writing. (This does not mean that we should try to emulate the writing styles of other authors – everyone has their own unique voice, and trying to adopt someone else’s will quickly become exhausting. I will talk about finding your own style in a later post.)

For us writers, reading is our form of work experience. By reading a book where an author creates realistic and resonant characters, we learn how to create realistic and resonant characters. By reading every book we can get our hands on, we learn different ways of handling plot, dialogue, and all the rest of it. We also pick up new words to add to our vocabulary. If you find that you’re not quite ready to start writing just yet, but you think you would consider it in the future, the best thing you can do for yourself now is to start reading (if you haven’t already) and read as much as you possibly can.

So, we’ve established that reading is one half of what you need to be a writer. The other half is, of course, writing. The clue is in the word itself: writer. A writer is someone who writes. Not someone who plans to write, or thinks about writing, or talks about writing. If you want to call yourself a writer, you need to sit down for a certain amount of time each day and write something.

And it does have to be every day; no excuses, no I’ll-skip-today-and-do-twice-as-much-tomorrow. I’ve made the mistake of thinking along those lines before, and it never worked out well. The reality of it is that you need to establish a writing routine, and stick to it, come hell or high water. Writing is often likened to a muscle; if you use it regularly, it will get stronger. If you only write when you feel like it, or when you’re inspired, it won’t.

Sometimes you’ll be lucky, and you’ll be able to write a whole afternoon blissfully away. Those are the really great days, the days that make it all worthwhile. When you’re so immersed in your own world that you forget to eat, or sleep. But it’s important to know that there are bad days too; days when you could stare at your computer screen for an hour straight, and not be able to squeeze out so much as a sentence. What I do on days like that is write something, anything, and then leave it. There’s no point in sitting there and waiting for an idea to float down the stream towards you if the river bed is dry. However, I recommend that even on these kinds of days, you do your best to get something written down. It could be a paragraph, or even just a sentence. That’s enough.

I know that the idea of writing every day, 365 days a year (yes, your birthday included), is daunting. But it’s worth noting that you don’t need to spend hours at your computer every afternoon; half an hour is enough, maybe more than enough, depending on how fast you write. If you’re really stuck for time, even five minutes is worth putting aside to write something. As long as you write every day, and as long as you’re strict with yourself about it, you’ll be fine.

So what are you waiting for? Get reading, get writing, and don’t think for a second that you’re not worthy of the title “writer” if you’re not published. A writer is someone who writes, remember? Once you have that part down, everything else falls into place.