Category Archives: Writing About Writing

tools, writing, Writing About Writing, writing tools wednesday

Writing Tools Wednesday: Hemingway App

Hello all! Today I’m here to tell you about a nifty website I’ve discovered called Hemingway. Basically you paste in some writing and it not only gives you an idea as to the reading level of your piece, but it also points out where you may want to change passive voice or turn adverbs into a more descriptive verb. (For example, it will let you know if you want to turn “She slowly walked towards the door” into “She tip-toed towards the door”.) It’s rather handy!

Do note that, of course, none of this is supposed to be a Bible or a set of unbreakable rules – rather, it’s a very neat and easy to follow way to get some ideas on how to spice up your writing a bit.

Check it out! I’m liking it quite a lot so far.

writing, Writing About Writing

200 Words a Day. It Works.

Recently, I have been writing. Every day.

I know, right? It’s not even NaNoWriMo and I’m writing!

The trick is to write just a little bit. Myself, I’m going for 200 words a day. That’s nothing. I can pound it out in ten minutes and have it over with.

But what happens if you write 200 words in one year?

Thanks, DuckDuckGo!
Thanks, DuckDuckGo!

73,000 words.

That’s a lot. That’s more than a NaNo novel. For like ten minutes of work a day. And that’s not counting all the times you’re going to go 50 words over so you can finish out your thoughts.

If you go with this plan you will have a nifty novel at the end of the year. Awesome, no?

200 WORDS A DAY. IT WORKS.

inspiration, writing, Writing About Writing

10 Did you write today? 20 GOTO 10

Do you consider yourself to be a good writer? Great! Keep writing.

Do you consider yourself to be a poor writer? Hey, me too! Keep writing.

YOUR GOAL TODAY IS ONE SENTENCE.

If you can write more than that, that’s AMAZING, but if you hit your goal then you’ve hit your goal and you’re on the right track and deserve accolades for simply opening your word processor.

Don’t believe in yourself? Believe in me, who believes in you!

writing, Writing About Writing

Places

Sometimes all it takes is the right place to inspire your writing. For example, I had the general idea for my latest book, Cricket Song, in my head for a good few months already when something interesting happened in my life and I found myself back in Washington State, the land of my childhood. While I now consider Montana my home, I spent the first ten years of my life in Washington among the seagulls, the overcast skies and the biggest trees in the world, and it was as I was traveling over Deception Pass that I suddenly realized that this was where I needed to set the book. I wanted it to have a magical, childlike quality and what better way would there be to evoke that than to attach my own emotions and childhood to the project?

Giving the book a special location really helped to cement its themes and ideas and give it a unique flavor.

Is this something that should be applied to all of your writing projects? Not necessarily. But give it a try the next time you’re stuck or even just trying to think of a way to add to your current project. You may be surprised how much life a specific and memorable location will give to a story.

tools, writing, Writing About Writing, writing tools wednesday

Writing Tools Wednesday: Songza

We all have our preferred writing soundtrack, but what if you need something appropriate to your scene on the fly? That’s where Songza comes in. Head over, click on Film Scores, pick the appropriate mood for your scene, and off you go. If you’re feeling fancy go ahead and take a look around the other playlists as well.

The only real downside is that the soundtracks aren’t quite as varied as I’d like and you’ll wind up with a lot of music from the same movie. Still, it’s good at grouping moods and themes together, so if you’re writing a tense standoff you’ll have some tense standoff music ready to go. Same with a major epic battle or some ominous plot twist.

Check it out!

P.S. I know this is terrible to say since I’ve just recently started blogging again, but I may not be around quite so much for the next few weeks since I am hosting a very special visitor. We’ll see how things go, however!

inspiration, writing, Writing About Writing

The Most Important Part of Being a Writer is Writing

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Did you know that if you write, then you are a writer? Pretty great, isn’t it?

On the flipside, though, if you do not write then you are not a writer.

Don’t be an “aspiring writer”. Just be a writer. Yes yes, I know, writing is a pain. It never stops being a bit of a pain. But I’m certain that you can manage a few sentences today. Even if no one else believes in you, I totally do!

So does this cat.
So does this cat.

If you need a boost today, here’s WrittenKitten. It generates a kitten image when you hit a target word count. You’re welcome.

writing, Writing About Writing

How to Trick Yourself Into Writing More

Writing is a pain in the butt. No, really, it is. And it never stops being a pain in the butt. No wonder we put off doing it so much.

I have a way to trick yourself into it, though. Ready?

Your goal today is to write one sentence in your current project.

That’s it. One sentence. That’s easy, right? It takes ten seconds, right? Heck, it takes longer to open up Scrivener/OpenOffice than to actually write one sentence.

So go do it. Done? CONGRATS! You’ve hit your goal for the day! Great work!

…but notice now that your brain sort of doesn’t want to stop writing now that you’ve started. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Go try this method. No, seriously. Then report back to me with results.

writing, Writing About Writing

If You Write Then I Am Proud Of You

I don’t care what you write. Fanfiction? That’s awesome. Blogs? Super cool. Original fiction? Sweet. A 200-word long short story? Just as valid.

The important thing is that you are writing. That you sat down, pushed away any distractions, and put words onto paper. …or, y’know, screen.

Isn’t that great?

We humans have this cool thing where we can express our thoughts and share it with others to read. Where we can create things.

And I dunno about you but I think that’s super awesome.

Did you write something today? Then I’m proud of you.

writing, Writing About Writing

Writing About Writing 2: The Outline

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Good morning everyone! Here’s a post to continue my last one about Writing About Writing. This time, we’ll be talking about outlining.

Outlining

There are a bunch of different ways to go about doing this. I’ve experimented with quite a few of them. Here are a couple of methods that I’ve tried:

No Outline: Also known as “pantsing”, aka, you’re “flying by the seat of your pants”. This is the classic NaNoWriMo scenario: you have, at most, a vague idea of what you want to write about and you’re making it up as you go along. I wrote “Windshifter” this way. The upside was that I got very, very emotionally invested in my story because it was so raw and new to me. The downside is that the flow wasn’t very natural, and as such, editing took forever.

No, really... FOREVER.

A Big Ol’ Paragraph: Most of the plot for “Cricket Song”, the book I am currently editing, came to me in a dream. I woke up, stumbled over to the computer, and pounded a long, rambly synopsis out into a text file. The final first draft followed this text file very closely (although not exactly.) Pros include a largely very tight and cohesive story which won’t require quite as much editing as a “pantsed” draft. Cons include losing that exciting feeling of throwing yourself into the unknown, and also the fact that you still might get stuck at a few points where you haven’t elaborated in your synopsis.

Chapter by Chapter: “Windshifter” actually isn’t my first novel. I wrote three or four of them when I was in high school. Writing a chapter-by-chapter outline was my modus operandi back then, and I’ve gotta say, it worked pretty well. Basically I decided in advance how many chapters I wanted my novel to be (say twenty), then I looked at what my page limit was (back then I was writing by hand in notebooks, so a 240 page notebook would turn into a 240-page book), and then I divided the number of pages by the number of chapters and gave myself that amount of pages, plus or minus a few, to write a chapter. I gave each chapter its own synopsis, so each one became its own little self-contained unit. Pros included a very tight outline and never having to worry about what, exactly, I was writing next. Cons included the fact that sometimes sections of the plot would just drag on forever because I wanted to fill my chapter up.

FUN FACT: Two of my novels back then were about my toys coming to life and declaring war on each other. No, really.

Using Tools: Lots of people use writing software to organize their thoughts and book ideas. Scriviner is a popular and widely lauded example; it comes with all sorts of neat tools to help you organize in the way you feel most comfortable with. It does cost money, though. I’m cheap and, in the past, have used a free software product called Kabikaboo, which doesn’t have half the options of something like Scriviner but allows you to make a “tree”-like outline, of sorts, which you can branch off into other thoughts. The pros to using these products are that they’re often very, very helpful for helping you get organized and keep things together. The cons are that sometimes you need to “re-wire” yourself for using these instead of just going the traditional route, which involves a bunch of text files in a folder. Still, a great many writers swear by these once they get them all figured out.

In Summary!

Outlining is one of those things that you should experiment with and figure out which option works the best for you. Hopefully, by giving you a few examples of methods I’ve tried in the past, you’ll be able to try some of these out for yourself and find out what you like.

Next time we launch into the actual writing process itself! 😀

writing, Writing About Writing

Writing About Writing 1: Ideas, Concepts, and Emotional Hooks

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Hi everyone!  Pike here.  I’ve decided to try something; specifically, I would like to write a series about my own adventures in writing, editing, and self-publishing.  I know a lot of people out there are interested in this process and I thought some of my own thoughts on it might be helpful and/or interesting to people.  So here we go!

So you want to write a book

Congratulations! You are about to embark on a journey that will probably take years (and I know what you’re thinking, which is that you can do it faster. Well– we’ll see when you get there ;3 ), and which will teach you much about yourself. Of course, before you start, you need…

An idea

Ideas can come from anywhere and strike at pretty much any time. I’ve had ideas that have turned into full-fledged books while driving, while in the shower, while at work, and even while dreaming. An idea can be very simple. My idea for Windshifter, for example, was “I want to take a bunch of old characters I invented when I was a kid and have fun with a steampunk-inspired fantasy world.”

Good ideas can’t be rushed. You let them come to you.

Now, you can’t write a book on an idea alone. You also need a plot, some concepts, and an emotional hook.

Plot

Plot is pretty easy. It’s what your English (or whatever language you speak) teacher taught you back in the day. It’s a few lines describing what happens in your book. What the action is, what the conflict is, and how the characters resolve it.

Concepts

Concepts are ideas and themes that you want to explore in your book. My Idea for Windshifter was to write a fun steampunky book with airships and clockwork. My Concepts included things like touching on the ideals of open source/free software, and talking about the nature of technology and science and our place in a world where both are more important than ever. Often one of those Concepts will sift away from the others, like gold from sand, and shine and glint more brightly than the others. And suddenly you will realize with a jolt that that particular Concept is your…

Emotional Hook

Every good story needs an emotional hook. You could have interesting characters, a great plot, and some neat concepts, but if your readers aren’t emotionally invested in your story, then they won’t care. Ideally your emotional hook is something that most (if not all) of your readers will be able to relate to– the characters can relate to it in a specific way, but everyone can feel those feelings.

With “Windshifter”, the emotional hook is loss. Several of the characters have lost something and are dealing with it in different ways. Heck, the dragon race as a whole lost something and is dealing with it in different ways.

I don’t know how it is with other writers, but for me, Emotional Hooks are often the very last thing to come to me when I’m planning a story, and it usually hits me like a lightning bolt triggered by personal experience. I wrote a book a couple years back called “Cricket Song” which I am currently in the process of editing. “Cricket Song” was born from the Idea “I want to explore a story about a girl and her imaginary friend.” This Idea was kicked around in my head for a good few months while I hemmed and hawwed over how to best go about publishing “Windshifter”, and I was really starting to feel rather overwhelmed with this, and it was in the midst of it all that the Emotional Hook of “Cricket Song” came clear: “What it means to do what you’re good at when everyone else is good at it too.” And suddenly, just like that, I had a story.

A quick note on characters: You’ll notice I don’t have a specific spot on the list for characters. Personally I think that characters are “born” from things like plot and concepts and emotional hooks. Or maybe you’ve just had a character in your head for a while. Who knows! But I tend to come up with them at the same time as I’m coming up with the other story elements.

How it all gels together

When I was in film school, one of the professors’ favorite examples for, well… pretty much anything was Finding Nemo, because it’s such a solid film and because Pixar is a storytelling genius.

With the disclaimer that I don’t know exactly how Pixar cooked up this film intact, let me tell you how it would have gone if I’d made it:

Idea: I want to make a story about fish and sea creatures lost in a big ocean.
Plot: A young fish is captured by a diver and put into an aquarium, and his father rushes off to find him. Along the way they meet a lot of interesting characters and learn a lot about themselves and each other.
Concepts: Disabilities, anxiety, family, friendship
Emotional Hook: What it means to “let go” of your comfort zone.

I said earlier that Pixar is a storytelling genius and I meant it. If you watch Finding Nemo you will see just how expertly they weave that Emotional Hook into the fabric of the story, which beautifully peaks as Dory tells Marlin “it’s time to let go!” when they’re stuck inside the whale that swallowed them. It’s subtle, but not too subtle. It’s comforting. It’s emotional and raw. And people love it.

And now!

A final word on all of this stuff: Don’t rush it. Let it come to you. You can have a good Idea without an Emotional Hook (or vice versa). You can have Concepts or Plots without a home. Let them all float around in your head, mess with them a little, play with them, put them together and take them apart like legos, and see what you can make. Once you find something you think you can make into a book, it’s time to jump into the next step… which we’ll talk about next time!