Destiny?

Check out the following cool Canadian Nike commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR14o0R5Xlg

Destiny doesn’t determine if we win.

We do.

A great reminder that everything we do, we do to become better writers and increase our chance of being published. And that includes the beating our egos take from our crit partners and our rejections from agents. We can whine or we can push ourshelves harder like these athletes. We can succeed!

Contest!

If you've written a YA or MG novel (it must be completed), check out Kidlit Contest for a chance to win a critique by agent Mary Kole (Andrea Brown Literary Agency) . The contest ends Sunday.

ETA: As of Saturday morning, there were over 400 hundred entries. Wow, she's going to be very busy for a while.

The Snowball Effect

I was recently editing Lost in a Heartbeat for voice when I came to the following flashback:

“So where’s your boyfriend?” he asked.

“How do you know I have one?” I did, of course, but Liam wasn’t there. There were only a few weeks left of summer vacation then he’d be leaving for college, so I didn’t think there was anything wrong flirting with this guy. Neither relationship was going to go anywhere, either way.

But I realized the main character, Calleigh, wasn’t the kind of girl to flirt with another guy when she had a boyfriend. Even if the boyfriend was going away to college and she'd no intention of having a long distance relationship. So I tweaked it:

“So where’s your boyfriend?” he asked.

“What makes you think I have one?” Liam and I had broken up only a few days before that. Or rather, I had dumped a Blue Raspberry Slurpee on his lap after Alejandra told me the latest gossip. He’d been caught getting all hot and steamy with a junior varsity cheerleader at a party just the week before. We hadn’t officially broken up, but I figured the Slurpee incident pretty much said it all.

Great except for one problem. Yep, you guessed it. It caused a snowball effect. Other sections then had to be rewritten because of this one little change.

Yes, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. The result was a domino effect that started with Liam cheating on Calleigh, and which resulted in the story problem. Now you see why I love editing. *grins*

Has this happened to you? Has one little change in your novel led to a snowball effect that you were excited about? One you never expected when you wrote your first draft—or edited your fifth?

Tip #60: Getting Close and Personal

This is gonna be a super quick tip.

Get close to your subject and see it in a whole different way. Plus, you can get some pretty cool abstract shots that way.

These two photos were taken of my neighbor’s apple tree during a foggy day (ice fog).

Mission Objectives

Okay, quick question. In each scene of your short story or novel, can you tell me the objective for each of your characters? In other words, what are they planning to do?

For example, say you have a scene that takes place in a math class. Better yet, social studies. That class always put me to sleep. Your teacher’s objective might be to get through the class without any trouble from the known gang member who actually decided to show up that day. Your main character and her best friend’s objective might be to continue the conversation they started before the bell, without getting caught. And the known gang member? He has a thing for your main character and is trying to get a rise out of her, especially since she’s pretending he doesn’t exist.

Now that you know each of the characters’ objectives for the scene, you’ll be able to write dialogue and action that keeps readers glued to the page. Plus you can make sure some of your character’s objective clash (like the main character and that hot gang member) so the scene is dripping with conflict.

Obviously this is perfect for those of us who write outlines first. But don’t worry if you don’t. You can always go back after writing your first draft, and figure it out before moving onto your next one.

For more information (and there’s a whole chapters worth), be sure to check out Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets A Novelist Can Learn From Actors. I told you last week this is an awesome book.

Tip #59: Through the Clutter

One of my favorite things about photography and writing is challenging myself to do better. In writing, it’s called editing. Some writers love it. Others loath it.

In photography, it’s about analyzing your photos, and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. For example, in this picture, there was originally a lot of decorative clutter on the table behind the teen. Knowing from past experience that this would distract the viewer’s eye from the girl, I took the time to remove it. Except I left the blue and white vase, figuring it would be okay, and would provide balance to the picture. Wrong. To some people, it might not be a big deal. They don’t even notice it. But to me, it’s still a distraction.

So there you have it. Two tips today for the price of one. Remove all the objects that can distract from the subject, or move your subject away from the clutter (unless the clutter is part of the theme). And take the time to figure out what’s good and what isn’t in your photos so that you can improve on them next time.

Now for the writers out there who are wondering if I love or loath editing, let me just say this: One of my favorite things about playing with Playdoh is trying to mold it into something new and exciting. But that’s a topic for another day.

Getting Into Character

Not long ago, I was wandering through my local library and found the book Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets A Novelist Can Learn From Actors by Brandilyn Collins. Unpleasant memories of my high school drama class came hurtling back to me. Two guys getting into a fight during our improv, and me standing there stunned, unable to utter a coherent sentence. Disaster 101.

I slipped the book back onto the shelf and bolted out of the section, leaving my painful past behind.

A week later, I returned to the library and checked the book out. By the end of the day, I was dying to try out the advice (some of which I already knew). I also developed a new found respect for actors. I didn’t realize how much work is involved in getting ready for a role. They really do know the character they play, inside and out. And depending on the role, they do tons of research beforehand to understand the character’s psyche. You can’t play a teen with a bipolar disorder if you know nothing about the condition.

I’ll admit, I’m a huge fan of pre-planning and research. I like to know my characters and the plot before I start writing the first draft. True, both develop further as I write, but it helps to know where I’m going before I start typing. I found the first chapter of Getting Into Character to be especially enlightening at this stage of my writing. You learn how to personalize your characters beyond the typical questionnaire. I have a pretty extensive one I like to use, but nothing prepared me for getting to know my characters better than the exercises in chapter one of Brandilyn’s book.

Through questioning, you’ll discover your character's values. From the values, you'll identify the character's traits. And based on these traits, the subsequent mannerisms will be developed. No more forming random lists or stereotypical characters. Plus your readers will be able to tell your characters apart. They’ll be vivid on every page of your novel. It’s a lot of hard work, but I promise the results are worth it. You’ll be shocked just how flat your characters were before.

And that’s only chapter one. The rest of the book is also bursting with great advice to help your characters leap off the page. And isn’t that what you want when you pick up a novel from the bookstore shelf? I know that’s what I’m searching for.

So even if drama wasn’t your strong point in school, you’ll find the advice in Getting Into Character invaluable. And your readers and characters will thank you for it.

Tip #58: Cool Effects

PHOTOGRAPH: a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused on to film or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment. (Oxford Dictionary). Geez, and I thought Calgary’s winter air was dry. I wonder if the writers of the Oxford Dictionary have ever tried to write a novel.

Okay, moving along.

The key word in this desert-like description is ‘light-sensitive.’ When we take a picture, we’re recording the visible light bouncing off an object. There is, however, a specialty film that allows us to take wicked photos of infrared light, but that’s a discussion for another day (once I get the film developed).

So keeping this definition in mind, I wondered if it was possible to take pictures of an object made of glow-in-the-dark materials. Would it emit enough light for me to take a picture? Obviously yes.

To shoot this photo, I focused on the dolphin while the light was still on. I then turned the light off, and experimented with different exposure times. You definitely need a tripod to do this.

I did have to adjust the exposure and brightness in Photoshop Elements. Although the image showed up in the LCD panel of my camera, the picture was blank when I opened it on the computer. Never a pleasant feeling. Trust me.

Remember, part of the fun of photography is being creative and exploring new way of taking photos. So go out an experiment. That’s your assignment for this week.

Side note: The dolphin is a symbol I've woven into my novel, Lost in a Heartbeat. Hence why this dude has a glow-in-dark heart. But contrary to what my kids believe, it isn't a story about a dolphin who lost his heart.

Cool Contest!

Okay, so one day I’ll have a contest of my own. Maybe if I land an agent. *sighs dreamily* But in the meantime, I’m going to enter the cool contests held by my blogging friends.

If you haven’t already, check this one out by Suzette Saxon and Bethany Wiggins (the fab sisters of the blog, Shooting Stars). Prizes include a critique on either your query or the first five pages of your novel. Obviously this contest is for fiction writers.

Lyrical Writing

When I heard Aerosmith’s song Angel, I knew it was perfect for my current novel. All I had to do was weave some of the verses and the chorus into the scene to show how the song triggered a terrifying flashback for my protagonist. The results were awesome, and a little creepy. Yes, I would have to get copyright permission, but that was okay. It beat writing my own, which I knew would end up sounding sucky.

Okay, not so fast. I did some research at a writer’s suggestion. Turns out, it would be expensive and time consuming to try to get permission to use the song, and in the end the band might not even grant it to me. Oh great! Now I had no choice but to write my own lyrics.

As it turned out, writing lyrics is similar to writing a story, because that’s what a song is, in a way. You still need to have a concept and a hook. You need to be concise with your details, and use imagery to add texture and meaning. Plus, you need to write a beginning that grabs your listeners. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to write the whole song, just a couple of verses and the chorus. The added bonus was I could incorporate part of the concept of my novel, which unified the whole thing. And the result was even creepier than with the Aerosmith song. What more could I want?

Granted, the song won’t top any charts. Nor will any musicians be banging on my front door, pleading with me so they can use it. But that’s okay. At least now I’ve given an agent one less reason to reject my manuscript. Yay!

Has anyone else had to write lyrics or poetry for their novel? If so, was this a new experience for you?