Plotter or Pantser?

Fiction writers are usually divided into two main categories: Plotters and Pantsers. So which are you? Plotter or Pantser? Maybe you don't know the difference. So lemme splain it. 

Do you carefully create an outline before you type the first word? Or do you just sit down at the keyboard and start pecking away? 

I would love to hear about your style and your reasons for choosing to work that way. Please leave a comment and tell us what works for you. 

Your turn. Plotter? Pantser?

The Key Elements

Listen to the mustn’ts, child. 

Listen to the don’ts. 

Listen to the shouldn’ts, 

the impossibles, the won’ts. 

Listen to the never haves, 

then listen close to me… 

Anything can happen, child. 

Anything can be.
― Shel Silverstein

Melissa Donovan has included the great passage above in her article on Writing Forward entitled Excellent Writing Tips from Successful Authors. And it’s appropriate that she begins with that, because inspiration is always the first requirement of creative writing. You may be the best mystery plotter on the planet, but until you have an idea of where your story is going, that skill isn’t going to do you much good. A swift kick-start of inspiration is the best solution for getting things churning around in your head so you can transfer those thoughts to your anxious typing digits.

Once you’ve been inspired and have an idea of where you’re going to take your anxious reader, you can begin. You need to start off with a bang. It's my firm belief that a great opening is the best way to greet your new reader and grab their attention. The following opening line is from Stormbreaker, and it's one of my favorite beginnings.

When the doorbell rings 

at three in the morning, 

it's never good news.— Anthony Horowitz

So a strong start is key to whetting the reader's appetite. But you can't fail to deliver. You need to keep their interest high as the story unfolds. If you don't, they'll put your book down and pick up another. And when it comes to knowing how to maintain a reader's interest, Jodie Renner is one of the best.  She's a creative writer and a professional editor who has written a great post about how that’s done. This is a three-part series entitled Tension on Every Page. You can read the first installment (and it’s very good) at the Writer’s Forensics Blog.

So, you’ve got the inspiration, you’ve grabbed your reader with a fantastic opening paragraph, and you’ve just completed the first draft of chapter one. And as The Carpenter's song from the 70s informs—we've only just begun. You know you’ve got to keep going or you’ll never finish this masterpiece. So how do you maintain that productive attitude and keep churning out those 2,000 words a day? Ann Aguirre has the answer for you. Her post on Writer Unboxed, entitled Five Productivity Tips, is an excellent treatment with some great advice.

So there you are. You’ve got the ingredients of a great novel right here on this page. Now all you need to do is get inspired, keep the tension on the pages, and remain productive. Before you know it, you’ll be typing The End. As we all know, that’s when the editing begins. But we’ll talk about that another day.

BACKSTORY BLUES

I've linked a new Cornell DeVille YouTube video to this post because I wanted my readers to understand the concept of backstory and how it relates to starting your manuscript out on the best foot. It doesn't matter whether you're writing a middle grade adventure, a young adult romance, or even a picture book. The key point to remember is simply this: you need to capture the attention of your reader as early as possible. Let me repeat that because it's vitally important.

YOU NEED TO CAPTURE THE ATTENTION OF 

YOUR READER AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE!

Most new writers love to write. In fact, they love to write everything they can think of in order to inform the reader about every fact and aspect of the story, the setting, the characters, the situation, etc. They will write until the cows come home before they get to the point. And that's sometimes the cause of the reader closing the book and looking for something else that doesn't drone on and on while it meanders slowly in its circuitous route toward something more interesting.

Obviously, backstory is important to your story. However, it's not the most important aspect. Grabbing the reader's attention is the critical issue to consider when you start writing. If you can do that with a narrative hook in the first few paragraphs, you can lock your reader in for another 50 or 75 pages. Provide them with a situation that places a question in their mind, and they'll keep reading until they discover the answer. That gives you, as the writer of this epic, some breathing room that you can use to weave your back story in so the reader can become intimately familiar with your characters while you let the plot play out.

I hope you will take the seven minutes required to view the video below. Then take another seven minutes and read the first few pages of your WIP. After you've done that, answer this question: Does the beginning of your WIP capture your attention? If not, maybe you need to do a little housekeeping and rearranging. Get the interesting bits up front so your reader can discover them early on.

Good luck. For some additional insight on openings, check this ARTICLE.

For a video version of this topic, visit my YouTube channel HERE.

I hope you'll leave me a comment. Keep writing. Someone has to do it.

YouTube Companion Channel

It's only in the planning stages at the moment, but I have just created a new YouTube channel to accompany my website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter media exposure. I hope you will check out the channel trailer I created, visit the channel, and subscribe for updates as new info is posted.

Why do I need a YouTube channel? Simply because it's sometimes easier if someone explains something in person rather than in printed media. Plus, it allows viewers to post comments and questions.

I hope you'll take a moment to watch the video trailer and visit my new channel.
As always, thanks for your support.

Free Copies of Skullhaven!

Tomorrow is the big day. I'm having a FREE PROMOTION on Amazon for my newest middle grade adventure. I hope everyone who visits this blog will head over there and get their free copy. And, if you enjoy it, I hope  you will write a review to tell other readers what you thought.

If you have a middle grade reader in your home, or if you're a teacher looking for a possible book for your class, please take advantage of this opportunity to get your free copy.

CLICK HERE!

Enjoy!

Building your platform

I have received several comments and emails from writers who are actively engaged in building an online presence. This is becoming an important aspect of getting agented, published, and selling your books if you choose the self-publishing route. But how do you do it effectively? This post will explore some of the no-cost avenues currently available.

Obviously, you're going to need a website or a blog. The former is not a no-cost option, but the latter is if you use Google's Blogger service, which is the platform this blog uses. It's simple to create a blog and quite easy to update. You can also use Wordpress. It used to have a cost associated with it, but it appears to be free at this point. Either of those two options will provide a good starting point for getting your name out there on the internet with no out-of-pocket expenditures. Free is good!

After you have a presence in the digital world, where do you go from there? How do you let people know you're out there and ready to share your wonderful information? This is where the power of social media takes over. Digital communities like Facebook and Twitter can get you into the flow and start traffic heading toward your site to read your informative posts.

But, what will I write about, you may be asking. Remember, it can't be all about you. Keep it topical, based on the purpose of your blog and your readership. You can include a poll to get a feel for the demographics and interests of your readers. When I started this blog, I wanted to provide other writers with help and information. I wanted it to be a place where we could share our work and offer suggestions and comments. I placed a couple of polling booths to determine what type of work my readers were writing.

The bottom line is that you need to provide some valuable content that will keep your loyal readers coming back to gain from your personal knowledge and experience and connect to the links you can provide them for even more information. It's also important to keep in mind that a blog is like a new puppy. It's cute and sweet at the beginning, but you have to feed it on a regular basis, usually every day. It won't survive for long if you don't give it the attention it needs.

When you create your blog, be sure to plug in one of those email subscription gadgets to alert your readers when you've posted something new. And if you haven't subscribed to this one, there's a link on the right sidebar just waiting for you to fill in the info. (Hint hint.) Also, Blogger provides a "Followers" gadget that readers can use to become a follower of your blog. (There's one of those on the sidebar of this blog also.) Encourage your readers to comment on your posts. That can provide new ideas for new posts and help build your web presence and increase your traffic.

You can also spread your knowledge around. Offer to be a guest blogger on other blogs, and try to leave comments on other blogs that are insightful. Another opportunity to get your work out there is to enter contests that other writers and agents are having on their own blogs. You may not always win, but sometimes agents may be interested enough to request material from you. 

What I've included in this post is simply some of the most basic info on building your own platform. Hopefully, it will provide a starting point for you. Andrea Brown literary agent Mary Kole has an excellent post on the Do's and Don'ts of creating your platform that goes into a bit more depth than this post.

And, of course, we're all curious. If you have jumped onto the I'm-building-a-platform bandwagon, leave a comment and let us know what you've done and what's worked for you.

Is your modifier dangling?

The subject for this post came to mind when I remembered Groucho Marx saying, "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I don't know."

A dangling modifier is an error in sentence structure whereby a grammatical modifier is associated with a word other than the one intended, or with no particular word at all. For example, a writer may have meant to modify the subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify an object instead. Such ambiguities can lead to unintentional humor or difficulty in understanding a sentence. Here are a few examples:

At the age of eight, my family finally bought a dog.
Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful.
As president of the kennel club, my poodle must be well groomed.
Screaming for help, David's fingers gripped the edge of the cliff.
After living under a pile of dust for thirty years, I found the documents.

We know what we're trying to say, but sometimes we just get a little confused and end up with something that may be a bit funnier than we intended. Of course, if you're writing humor, the dangling modifier may be your best friend.

Now it's your turn. Give us an example of your own. Just click on that Comment thing and type away.