Hi all,
Very recently, several of my writing buddies have been mentioning characters that have specific traits (from liking a particular color to enjoying a vacation to a certain city) in novels and how these traits/quirks has helped them either relate to the character, help to feel sympathy for the character but most importantly, make the fictional character seem ’real’ to the reader.
So, after reading all that, I sat down and thought about my universe. Do my characters have interesting habits/traits/quirks? Yep, they do and I wanted to mention a few. Mina Harker as a human sleeps with one of the most powerful vampires in all the world, Dracula, her soul mate below the Paris Opera House. Yet, she hates to sleep in the dark and always burns a gas lamp low to keep her room in only semi-darkness. Yeah, when you think about it, it doesn’t really make sense (vampires are more dangerous) but when I thought about giving Mina that trait/quirk, it seemed like a very human thing that someone would do and possibly would allow the readers to be able to feel a ‘connection’ to the Mina character when they read her.
My Dracula character can perform physically during lovemaking. It was never clear in Stoker’s book whether Dracula or any other vampire had the physical ability to make love. After much thinking, I decided that my vampire characters could consummate the act though Dracula is pretty miffed that Stoker didn’t include that little aspect in the book. I thought it would be a fun trait for Dracula to have and something interesting to include in my universe (the idea of Dracula not being able to perform is the issue that bothers him most with the Stoker book). And though that is illogical (Stoker documented many more atrocities in various journals in the book), I dunno but I think that might be the one issue that would bother a proud male vampire the most.
Finally, I’ve given my character, Quincey Harker, born in the first book but growing up in the second book, two traits. A love of reading and an interest in horses. As a kid, he’s going to walk around carrying horse dolls. Which I think is a cute trait to give a kid.
Quincey also has some scary marionette dolls. But then, they were made for him by his Uncle:)
So, in closing, I guess I’d say that it’s not the general details that you give your characters (hair color, handedness (Dracula and Erik are left handed, Mina and Christine are right handed)) but the intimate details (Mina will always love to bake and sew, even after she becomes a vampire and cannot eat the food) that make the reader more able to ‘connect’ with your characters and not only enjoy them, but also, enjoy the entire novel.
Happy New Year all!
Chris
Friday, December 28, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Congratulations, you’ve just developed your own universe. Now what?
Hi all,
In this writer’s opinion, your second book may be even more important than your first one. Though the first novel ‘sets the stage’ so to speak, introducing your reader to a new universe and new ideas (in my universe, Dracula and Erik are buddies), the second novel provides the momentum to take the reader further into the universe that you’ve created. Hopefully, by the time the reader is done with your second novel, they will have become even more interested/invested in your characters and their situations and will want to read a third or even a fourth book.
Besides ensuring that your second book doesn’t follow the ‘formula’ of your first book (new plot, more new characters introduced, etc), you need to be able to be flexible as a writer to grow with your universe. What does that mean exactly? Well, as I’ve said, I’m a reader as well as a writer and with regard to the former, I’ve followed several authors over their writing life, some for double digit years (one writer for more than twenty years). In that time period, it is interesting to see the universe that you love as a reader begin to unfold and expand, sometimes in ways that you never thought it would after reading the very first novel in the series.
And that’s the important thing. Because though you may write in a genre (I’m a romance writer), you have to be ready to adjust to fit your character/universe’s needs. As I’ve just said, each book should be unique in plot, so therefore, one book may be more about romance whereas another book in the series may have more action or death or humor.
Not that every book shouldn’t have romance but one aspect or even several, may become more prominent as your universe and books move along. Therefore, as a writer you need to be sensitive to your character and their growing pains and need to be able to easily move and shift gears as the need to do this arises. And the need may come up just when you least expect it so be aware of this. If you cannot do this and remain static in your writing, your universe will also become lifeless and boring as well. As a reader I always liked reading book series since I enjoyed following the character (s) along his/her journey in life. Though the character may only exist between the printed pages, if one is a good writer, a character can feel almost ‘real’ to a reader. They will become very interested to your characters and therefore, will want to continue to read to see what happens next.
So, I guess my advice to the readers of this blog would be to be able to be flexible as a writer, that is, to be able to change and adapt to your universe’s needs. If suddenly a book needs to be an overall action book or even more violent than you are used to writing, it is important that you are able to adjust your writing style accordingly. It can be a difficult thing (I am still working on writing humor, it is the toughest for me to do, I think) to adapt your writing style with each successive book. But the readers of your universe will enjoy the characters more. And you probably will too.
Take care all,
Chris
PS--Happy Holidays! Enjoy and have fun:)
In this writer’s opinion, your second book may be even more important than your first one. Though the first novel ‘sets the stage’ so to speak, introducing your reader to a new universe and new ideas (in my universe, Dracula and Erik are buddies), the second novel provides the momentum to take the reader further into the universe that you’ve created. Hopefully, by the time the reader is done with your second novel, they will have become even more interested/invested in your characters and their situations and will want to read a third or even a fourth book.
Besides ensuring that your second book doesn’t follow the ‘formula’ of your first book (new plot, more new characters introduced, etc), you need to be able to be flexible as a writer to grow with your universe. What does that mean exactly? Well, as I’ve said, I’m a reader as well as a writer and with regard to the former, I’ve followed several authors over their writing life, some for double digit years (one writer for more than twenty years). In that time period, it is interesting to see the universe that you love as a reader begin to unfold and expand, sometimes in ways that you never thought it would after reading the very first novel in the series.
And that’s the important thing. Because though you may write in a genre (I’m a romance writer), you have to be ready to adjust to fit your character/universe’s needs. As I’ve just said, each book should be unique in plot, so therefore, one book may be more about romance whereas another book in the series may have more action or death or humor.
Not that every book shouldn’t have romance but one aspect or even several, may become more prominent as your universe and books move along. Therefore, as a writer you need to be sensitive to your character and their growing pains and need to be able to easily move and shift gears as the need to do this arises. And the need may come up just when you least expect it so be aware of this. If you cannot do this and remain static in your writing, your universe will also become lifeless and boring as well. As a reader I always liked reading book series since I enjoyed following the character (s) along his/her journey in life. Though the character may only exist between the printed pages, if one is a good writer, a character can feel almost ‘real’ to a reader. They will become very interested to your characters and therefore, will want to continue to read to see what happens next.
So, I guess my advice to the readers of this blog would be to be able to be flexible as a writer, that is, to be able to change and adapt to your universe’s needs. If suddenly a book needs to be an overall action book or even more violent than you are used to writing, it is important that you are able to adjust your writing style accordingly. It can be a difficult thing (I am still working on writing humor, it is the toughest for me to do, I think) to adapt your writing style with each successive book. But the readers of your universe will enjoy the characters more. And you probably will too.
Take care all,
Chris
PS--Happy Holidays! Enjoy and have fun:)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The importance of properly naming your characters
Hi all,
If you’re a writer reading this blog, you know how important character names are to the overall impression that the reader will take away after reading your novel. ‘Improperly’ named characters can cause the reader even to feel lukewarm about one’s entire book and perhaps, if the characters are continually named wrong, may not purchase subsequent novels in your series.
Now, what do I mean by improperly naming one’s character? It can be a complex concept to explain in words but I will try here in this entry. Books, unlike movies are not visual and so, to have an entertaining novel, the reader must be able to visualize the story in his/her head as they are reading your book. This includes settings, action and most important of all, the physical traits of characters.
Movies are sometimes made after successful books and how many times have you read fans of a certain book say or write that they really ‘pictured the actor as the character’. Or not. In other words, the readers believe that so and so actor was chosen wisely or vice versa, meaning that they didn’t visualize the character as looking like the particular actor/actress chosen to play the role in the movie.
Do all readers have to visualize the character the same way to have a successful series? Does the writer’s version of what the character looks like have to agree with the reader’s? These are other, interesting questions, but since I am only talking about the concept of naming characters, I’d just say that there are general parameters that the reader and the author should ‘see’ in their mind about the physical attributes of the characters in a novel. There is some room for discrepancy between what the reader and the author visualize in their mind about certain characters but I do believe that the spectrum (between what the author and the reader sees) is narrower than what can be hypothesized. In other words, yes, for the most extent, the author can be most successful if he/she can translate what they see the physical attributes of their characters as being directly to their readers. How about emotional attributes, in other words, does the readers and the writers see the characters in the same way as the writer? Maybe something for another blog entry. Right now, I’m going to concentrate on the proper names of characters.
So as I’ve previously said, I believe that a writer is most successful with their series if their readers ‘see’ the characters in a very similar way that they do and this includes the physical attributes of the characters. But how to explain exactly what a character looks like in words? Oh, certainly you can say that chacter X is tall, short, thin, fat, has blonde hair or brown. But, when one names a character, the name sometimes suggests a certain physicality to the reader. For example, if one named a character William Bladestone, it seems to suggest a very Anglo-Saxon looking man, perhaps even somewhat conservative. Again, much can be ‘read’ into the character by the reader just looking at the name. Shortening a name, calling an Elizabeth, Liz for example, takes the character from a more staid visual by the reader (Elizabeth) and transforms the character into a hip, modern version (Liz).
The next issue that a writer should be aware of when naming a character is to be certain that the name matches the century in which you are writing as well as the ethnicity of the character. Since I am writing a Phantom Dracula crossover universe and most of my action (at least in the first book in the series) took place in Paris, many of my character names were of French origin. Dracula is Romanian and so several characters had names belonging specifically to that country as well. Though Bob is a very good name (William actually being the more ’correct’ version for the 1800s), it is English in origin and therefore, would not ‘fit’ a French character well.
Some names have a specific origin but are more general in their use. For example, though Joseph is of Hebrew origin, depending on what surname you give to the character, you can use this name for more than just one ethnicity. Naming vampires can be interesting as well and one wants to give an ‘old’ vampire an ‘old’ sounding name. Many modern names of real life people that we know today came into fashion in the late 20th Century. Personally, I don’t think I’d name a 1,000 year old vampire Ashley, since the name sounds too modern and updated for one so old.
Now, what if you do name your character improperly, not paying attention to time period of story setting and ethnicity/country of origin of your character? Well, not much may happen on the initial draft, though your first readers may suggest a name change. But perhaps, for whatever reason, they don’t see the name as a problem. Then, one’s editor may ‘catch’ the incorrectly named character (you know, I don’t visualize character X as ‘looking’ like an X’) and so, then, you may need to rename that character. But sometimes everyone thinks that the names are good and then, the book goes to print and then your readers have some difficulty with the names. Either the names don’t match what you describe the characters to be or maybe they’ve never met a person named Charlotte so it is difficult for the reader to make the important connections in their mind. Therefore, your book 'fails' for them because that reader cannot ‘see’ that character well as they read your book.
Naming characters incorrectly then, will provide less enjoyment for the reader because they cannot feel emotionally close to the story (character is fuzzy or just bland (not 3D, colorful as they should be) in their imagination). Worst of all, naming a 19th Century French character Bob, will pull the reader physically and emotionally out of the story when their eyes come across that name. Do it too much and you’ve ‘lost’ the illusion so the speak, meaning that the reader, having been immersed in your story, is pulled/even ripped, depending on how ‘bad’ the name is, out of the storyline and so, the reader may even categorize the story overall as not effortless or enjoyable simply because of one or a few improperly named characters.
Continually improper naming of characters, naming characters without regard to time period, origin of birth, etc. will cause you to lose perhaps, not your initial first readers (though book reviews may remark about improperly named characters) but also readers that would buy a second book in the series. These 'second' readers may not since they did not like your first book. And though liking and disliking a book may be subjective, properly naming one’s characters will ensure that at least, you as a writer, have done all you can to keep your reader both interested and engaged in your storyline. And a ‘hungry’ reader, that is, one who has read and loved your book and wants to see ‘what happens next‘, is always your best customer.
Take care all,
Chris
If you’re a writer reading this blog, you know how important character names are to the overall impression that the reader will take away after reading your novel. ‘Improperly’ named characters can cause the reader even to feel lukewarm about one’s entire book and perhaps, if the characters are continually named wrong, may not purchase subsequent novels in your series.
Now, what do I mean by improperly naming one’s character? It can be a complex concept to explain in words but I will try here in this entry. Books, unlike movies are not visual and so, to have an entertaining novel, the reader must be able to visualize the story in his/her head as they are reading your book. This includes settings, action and most important of all, the physical traits of characters.
Movies are sometimes made after successful books and how many times have you read fans of a certain book say or write that they really ‘pictured the actor as the character’. Or not. In other words, the readers believe that so and so actor was chosen wisely or vice versa, meaning that they didn’t visualize the character as looking like the particular actor/actress chosen to play the role in the movie.
Do all readers have to visualize the character the same way to have a successful series? Does the writer’s version of what the character looks like have to agree with the reader’s? These are other, interesting questions, but since I am only talking about the concept of naming characters, I’d just say that there are general parameters that the reader and the author should ‘see’ in their mind about the physical attributes of the characters in a novel. There is some room for discrepancy between what the reader and the author visualize in their mind about certain characters but I do believe that the spectrum (between what the author and the reader sees) is narrower than what can be hypothesized. In other words, yes, for the most extent, the author can be most successful if he/she can translate what they see the physical attributes of their characters as being directly to their readers. How about emotional attributes, in other words, does the readers and the writers see the characters in the same way as the writer? Maybe something for another blog entry. Right now, I’m going to concentrate on the proper names of characters.
So as I’ve previously said, I believe that a writer is most successful with their series if their readers ‘see’ the characters in a very similar way that they do and this includes the physical attributes of the characters. But how to explain exactly what a character looks like in words? Oh, certainly you can say that chacter X is tall, short, thin, fat, has blonde hair or brown. But, when one names a character, the name sometimes suggests a certain physicality to the reader. For example, if one named a character William Bladestone, it seems to suggest a very Anglo-Saxon looking man, perhaps even somewhat conservative. Again, much can be ‘read’ into the character by the reader just looking at the name. Shortening a name, calling an Elizabeth, Liz for example, takes the character from a more staid visual by the reader (Elizabeth) and transforms the character into a hip, modern version (Liz).
The next issue that a writer should be aware of when naming a character is to be certain that the name matches the century in which you are writing as well as the ethnicity of the character. Since I am writing a Phantom Dracula crossover universe and most of my action (at least in the first book in the series) took place in Paris, many of my character names were of French origin. Dracula is Romanian and so several characters had names belonging specifically to that country as well. Though Bob is a very good name (William actually being the more ’correct’ version for the 1800s), it is English in origin and therefore, would not ‘fit’ a French character well.
Some names have a specific origin but are more general in their use. For example, though Joseph is of Hebrew origin, depending on what surname you give to the character, you can use this name for more than just one ethnicity. Naming vampires can be interesting as well and one wants to give an ‘old’ vampire an ‘old’ sounding name. Many modern names of real life people that we know today came into fashion in the late 20th Century. Personally, I don’t think I’d name a 1,000 year old vampire Ashley, since the name sounds too modern and updated for one so old.
Now, what if you do name your character improperly, not paying attention to time period of story setting and ethnicity/country of origin of your character? Well, not much may happen on the initial draft, though your first readers may suggest a name change. But perhaps, for whatever reason, they don’t see the name as a problem. Then, one’s editor may ‘catch’ the incorrectly named character (you know, I don’t visualize character X as ‘looking’ like an X’) and so, then, you may need to rename that character. But sometimes everyone thinks that the names are good and then, the book goes to print and then your readers have some difficulty with the names. Either the names don’t match what you describe the characters to be or maybe they’ve never met a person named Charlotte so it is difficult for the reader to make the important connections in their mind. Therefore, your book 'fails' for them because that reader cannot ‘see’ that character well as they read your book.
Naming characters incorrectly then, will provide less enjoyment for the reader because they cannot feel emotionally close to the story (character is fuzzy or just bland (not 3D, colorful as they should be) in their imagination). Worst of all, naming a 19th Century French character Bob, will pull the reader physically and emotionally out of the story when their eyes come across that name. Do it too much and you’ve ‘lost’ the illusion so the speak, meaning that the reader, having been immersed in your story, is pulled/even ripped, depending on how ‘bad’ the name is, out of the storyline and so, the reader may even categorize the story overall as not effortless or enjoyable simply because of one or a few improperly named characters.
Continually improper naming of characters, naming characters without regard to time period, origin of birth, etc. will cause you to lose perhaps, not your initial first readers (though book reviews may remark about improperly named characters) but also readers that would buy a second book in the series. These 'second' readers may not since they did not like your first book. And though liking and disliking a book may be subjective, properly naming one’s characters will ensure that at least, you as a writer, have done all you can to keep your reader both interested and engaged in your storyline. And a ‘hungry’ reader, that is, one who has read and loved your book and wants to see ‘what happens next‘, is always your best customer.
Take care all,
Chris
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Change: Is it a good or a bad thing for authors?
Hi all,
Since my last post was about the holiday season, I thought I would follow it with thoughts derived from the holiday that follows Christmas. Yep, it's the good ol' new year. This year it will be 2008 and for someone growing up in the ‘70s, it’s amazing that we’ll see the year of 2010 very, very soon.
And so the new year provides us all, writers and non writers alike to look back at the past year and see both how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet left to go. The new year is a time to assess past goals and make new ones for the upcoming year. But, this time is also a time when we think about change. How much we have changed. And how little.
As writers, we’d like to think that we’ve ‘grown’ in our writing, that is, that we’ve been able to show more complexity in our work. But since many of our readers fell in love with our first novel, is this change indeed a good thing?
Though one’s writing should develop more depth as one becomes hopefully, more adept at writing novels, I think that one should not lose sight of what the readers enjoyed about one’s first novel. Therefore, in order to ‘recapture’ what your readers enjoy about your work, I think you should reread yourself from time to time.
Now, I’m not saying that every week you should pull your book(s) off of your bookshelf and read yourself with that much repetition. However, though, I do feel that unless you read yourself semi-regularly (maybe a few chapters every month or so), you might eventually move so far away from your original inner voice that you will be distancing yourself from your readers.
As I’ve said previously in this blog entry, everyone ‘changes’/grows/develops every year. And yes, that is a good thing. However, keeping one’s inner voice consistent is important, especially if you’re doing a book series and wanting to keep your original fans interested in your current work. By not rereading your own work, you may find that you have drifted too far from your original voice and so, perhaps, be writing ‘better’ than you’ve written, but your new books will not match the old ones. In other words, your voice won’t ‘sound’ the same to your old fans. This is not a good thing since your old fans may not find that they enjoy your new/improved writer's voice and so, may move on to other authors/other books.
I guess the ‘trick’ of it all then, is to be able to reread one’s work (again, not rereading an entire novel but perhaps a chapter or two a month) and try to remember what it was that readers enjoyed about your universe enough to purchase your work. I think that if the writer keeps doing this from time to time, they then, can move forward in a sense and keep developing as a writer. You might lose a piece of your original ‘voice’ (original voice may shift/change a bit over time) but you will still keep the essence of what it is that your fans enjoy about your universe/characters in tact.
Before I was a writer, I was an avid reader in the romance genre, particularly in the vampire romance genre. I have many favorite authors and the most wonderful thing for me as a reader is to be able to purchase their new novel and on beginning to read them, ‘feel’ their voice talking to me as I read. It’s comforting as a reader (some authors I’ve been reading over 20 years) to be able to reconnect in a sense with the author’s inner voice and the knowing that they’ve kept the original magic of their first book going over the entire series (and is present in their new book).
So, in summation, I’d say that change is good but as a writer, one should be aware of one's changing over time. I wouldn’t say not to change your ‘voice’ but I’d say that if you’re working on making each succeeding novel ‘better’ understand and try to keep the essence of what made your faithful readers/fans first want to buy and read your work in the first place. Again, I believe that a writer can achieve these two distinct and opposing sounding goals (growing as a writer while trying to keep your original voice the same) by rereading themselves occasionally. Only by revisiting one’s old work can one be able to see the past and be able to plan and build for the future.
Take care all,
Chris
PS--Next up: 19th Century French characters named Bob or why one should choose appropriate names for your characters.
Since my last post was about the holiday season, I thought I would follow it with thoughts derived from the holiday that follows Christmas. Yep, it's the good ol' new year. This year it will be 2008 and for someone growing up in the ‘70s, it’s amazing that we’ll see the year of 2010 very, very soon.
And so the new year provides us all, writers and non writers alike to look back at the past year and see both how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet left to go. The new year is a time to assess past goals and make new ones for the upcoming year. But, this time is also a time when we think about change. How much we have changed. And how little.
As writers, we’d like to think that we’ve ‘grown’ in our writing, that is, that we’ve been able to show more complexity in our work. But since many of our readers fell in love with our first novel, is this change indeed a good thing?
Though one’s writing should develop more depth as one becomes hopefully, more adept at writing novels, I think that one should not lose sight of what the readers enjoyed about one’s first novel. Therefore, in order to ‘recapture’ what your readers enjoy about your work, I think you should reread yourself from time to time.
Now, I’m not saying that every week you should pull your book(s) off of your bookshelf and read yourself with that much repetition. However, though, I do feel that unless you read yourself semi-regularly (maybe a few chapters every month or so), you might eventually move so far away from your original inner voice that you will be distancing yourself from your readers.
As I’ve said previously in this blog entry, everyone ‘changes’/grows/develops every year. And yes, that is a good thing. However, keeping one’s inner voice consistent is important, especially if you’re doing a book series and wanting to keep your original fans interested in your current work. By not rereading your own work, you may find that you have drifted too far from your original voice and so, perhaps, be writing ‘better’ than you’ve written, but your new books will not match the old ones. In other words, your voice won’t ‘sound’ the same to your old fans. This is not a good thing since your old fans may not find that they enjoy your new/improved writer's voice and so, may move on to other authors/other books.
I guess the ‘trick’ of it all then, is to be able to reread one’s work (again, not rereading an entire novel but perhaps a chapter or two a month) and try to remember what it was that readers enjoyed about your universe enough to purchase your work. I think that if the writer keeps doing this from time to time, they then, can move forward in a sense and keep developing as a writer. You might lose a piece of your original ‘voice’ (original voice may shift/change a bit over time) but you will still keep the essence of what it is that your fans enjoy about your universe/characters in tact.
Before I was a writer, I was an avid reader in the romance genre, particularly in the vampire romance genre. I have many favorite authors and the most wonderful thing for me as a reader is to be able to purchase their new novel and on beginning to read them, ‘feel’ their voice talking to me as I read. It’s comforting as a reader (some authors I’ve been reading over 20 years) to be able to reconnect in a sense with the author’s inner voice and the knowing that they’ve kept the original magic of their first book going over the entire series (and is present in their new book).
So, in summation, I’d say that change is good but as a writer, one should be aware of one's changing over time. I wouldn’t say not to change your ‘voice’ but I’d say that if you’re working on making each succeeding novel ‘better’ understand and try to keep the essence of what made your faithful readers/fans first want to buy and read your work in the first place. Again, I believe that a writer can achieve these two distinct and opposing sounding goals (growing as a writer while trying to keep your original voice the same) by rereading themselves occasionally. Only by revisiting one’s old work can one be able to see the past and be able to plan and build for the future.
Take care all,
Chris
PS--Next up: 19th Century French characters named Bob or why one should choose appropriate names for your characters.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
The Writing Notebook: An indispensable tool for Writers
Hi all,
Yep, it’s that time of year again. The holiday season. And while it’s one of my favorite times of the year, it can get even crazier in my household than normal (and that’s saying something!LOL).
Though I read and write romance novels, I am still single. Therefore, I’m in charge with what goes on in my household. Besides decorating, shopping and planning, I have other chores to do like ‘Um, why is the light not working, sigh?’ for example and so I must put my writing aside and deal with the crises at hand.
What’s hard as a writer is to not only find the time to write but to be able to set aside said writing to go deal with running a household, your day job and other things and then, go back to writing again. Yeah, sometimes writing is analogous to making love, I.e., you need to get back into the ‘right’ mood:)
So how does a writing notebook help you toward this? Well, let me give an example. There’s a couple of projects I want to work on but keep getting interrupted. Putting things down on paper will allow you as a writer, to come back to your work at a later time and thus to be able to begin working again more quickly.
Though what’s written in my writing notebook may not be as decipherable as a story or parts of a novel to most. It contains short phrases, descriptions of setting/characters and smatterings of dialogue, just to name a few things of what is written in there. Is everything in a linear order? Most but not all. Yeah, I do have arrows drawn linking ideas to different things because sometimes I write all over the page including in the margins.
Some writers use post it notes and I can understand that in some ways since I used index cards as a student to write my non-fiction research papers (index cards with ideas written on them *are* easier to shuffle) but I have a problem of losing stuff so I tend to prefer the solidness and dependability of keeping everything in one place, that is, the notebook.
I’m almost 40 and didn’t start writing my work on a computer until I was about 20 so my writing notebook is done by hand. I dunno, it’s probably my age but I do like to physically write my ideas down on paper. It somehow lets me plan everything out and feel ’closer’ to my ideas/story than when I type things on a computer. For me, the computer provides a bit of distance, something that physical writing does not. But talking with other writers who are younger than me, the former is not true for them. So yeah, it’s probably my age and therefore, your notebook, I guess can be digital. Though when you’re between writing ideas, you can’t doodle (as easily) on a computer page:)
To sum up then, I think a writing notebook is good for us writers since it acts as a ‘second brain’ as such to provide a safe and a secure place (harder to lose notebook than index cards) to store ideas until future use.
A writing notebook is also good because you can store ideas about your universe, including character descriptions and plot. I’m one of those writers who set up an outline before I write my book/story and so writing a plot in a notebook allows me to physically see if a story or book will ‘work’ before I go in a start writing it. Also, if you have your plot written out in your notebook, you can also see where the plot points are and how ‘balanced’ everything is (that your book/story isn’t lopsided in that everything important doesn’t happen in the last five pages or so while you have nothing interesting for the first couple of hundred).
Finally, if you are involved in writing a universe and plan to write two, three, four, five or even more books about the same characters, keeping a writing notebook will allow you to record minor details. In other words, if you want to look up a specific thing (what present character 1 gave to character 2 on first Christmas for example) you won’t have to reread your entire book or large sections of your books to do this. Though I do suggest that writers do reread their books from time to time, but that is again, the subject of another post. Keeping facts, character traits, etc. in a writing notebook is important because then, you can save time by not rereading entire large sections of your book to find out a single fact that you may have forgotten and get back to doing what you need to be doing, that is, writing another book.
Take care all,
Chris
Yep, it’s that time of year again. The holiday season. And while it’s one of my favorite times of the year, it can get even crazier in my household than normal (and that’s saying something!LOL).
Though I read and write romance novels, I am still single. Therefore, I’m in charge with what goes on in my household. Besides decorating, shopping and planning, I have other chores to do like ‘Um, why is the light not working, sigh?’ for example and so I must put my writing aside and deal with the crises at hand.
What’s hard as a writer is to not only find the time to write but to be able to set aside said writing to go deal with running a household, your day job and other things and then, go back to writing again. Yeah, sometimes writing is analogous to making love, I.e., you need to get back into the ‘right’ mood:)
So how does a writing notebook help you toward this? Well, let me give an example. There’s a couple of projects I want to work on but keep getting interrupted. Putting things down on paper will allow you as a writer, to come back to your work at a later time and thus to be able to begin working again more quickly.
Though what’s written in my writing notebook may not be as decipherable as a story or parts of a novel to most. It contains short phrases, descriptions of setting/characters and smatterings of dialogue, just to name a few things of what is written in there. Is everything in a linear order? Most but not all. Yeah, I do have arrows drawn linking ideas to different things because sometimes I write all over the page including in the margins.
Some writers use post it notes and I can understand that in some ways since I used index cards as a student to write my non-fiction research papers (index cards with ideas written on them *are* easier to shuffle) but I have a problem of losing stuff so I tend to prefer the solidness and dependability of keeping everything in one place, that is, the notebook.
I’m almost 40 and didn’t start writing my work on a computer until I was about 20 so my writing notebook is done by hand. I dunno, it’s probably my age but I do like to physically write my ideas down on paper. It somehow lets me plan everything out and feel ’closer’ to my ideas/story than when I type things on a computer. For me, the computer provides a bit of distance, something that physical writing does not. But talking with other writers who are younger than me, the former is not true for them. So yeah, it’s probably my age and therefore, your notebook, I guess can be digital. Though when you’re between writing ideas, you can’t doodle (as easily) on a computer page:)
To sum up then, I think a writing notebook is good for us writers since it acts as a ‘second brain’ as such to provide a safe and a secure place (harder to lose notebook than index cards) to store ideas until future use.
A writing notebook is also good because you can store ideas about your universe, including character descriptions and plot. I’m one of those writers who set up an outline before I write my book/story and so writing a plot in a notebook allows me to physically see if a story or book will ‘work’ before I go in a start writing it. Also, if you have your plot written out in your notebook, you can also see where the plot points are and how ‘balanced’ everything is (that your book/story isn’t lopsided in that everything important doesn’t happen in the last five pages or so while you have nothing interesting for the first couple of hundred).
Finally, if you are involved in writing a universe and plan to write two, three, four, five or even more books about the same characters, keeping a writing notebook will allow you to record minor details. In other words, if you want to look up a specific thing (what present character 1 gave to character 2 on first Christmas for example) you won’t have to reread your entire book or large sections of your books to do this. Though I do suggest that writers do reread their books from time to time, but that is again, the subject of another post. Keeping facts, character traits, etc. in a writing notebook is important because then, you can save time by not rereading entire large sections of your book to find out a single fact that you may have forgotten and get back to doing what you need to be doing, that is, writing another book.
Take care all,
Chris
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