Calling All Writers: Planning The Story

Working on updating the image!

Today's topic is Planning the Story!
(This is how I do this, but you can mold this into a separate method.)

Whenever you come up with an idea for a story, usually you know something. Whether it be an ending, a scene, a topic, or a character, you have something to work with. This is key. It is practically impossible to come up with a story out of thin air, simply because in order to finish something you must have inspiration. The more inspiration the better.
   Usually my stories start out as a dream, a concept, or a scene. Once it was an incredibly vivid dream about four sisters who lived in this beach town. I knew huge details including the town they lived in. It was crazy, but I couldn't figure out how the pieces fit together, so I never wrote it.
   When you dream up a concept the first step is simple: Write it down. Write down whatever you have, whether it be a plot line or a scene, or even a line of dialogue, any of it could be important to the story line. Next, find a binder, preferably 1-1 and a half inch for ease of paper. Buy some dividers, copy paper, lined paper, sharpies, tabs, and sticky notes. Then unwrap it all and sit down to work.
   Label the first divider plot line and fill it with plenty of either copy paper or lined paper. I prefer copy paper, simply because I feel like I can write huge. Separate your plot into increments of 5 chapters and slowly plan out what will happen - it can be greatly in depth or simply a basic idea of the goal of the scene. Make two checkboxes at the top, one labeled Written, the other Edited.
   The second divider is Character Outlines, which will be out next topic on Calling All Writers!, so for now just do the plot line. Third divider is notes, where you make notes of inspiration that you don't know where they will fit, maps, or random ideas. The fourth is Scene Drafts, which are key. Whenever you have spent too much time with your story going in order, skip ahead and draft out a key scene to the story. This will give you some more ideas on the characters, the goal of the plot, and the feel of the relationships before you enter them head over heels. The fifth divider is Paper, where I store lined paper for note taking. The last one is titles Drafts, which is currently empty in my binder. It will be filled eventually!
   Use the sticky pad for drafting, the tabs for notes in your binder or drafting. Enjoy the organization while it lasts!

Good luck writers!

Calling All Writers: Dialogue

Today's topic is Dialogue!

So I located a helpful website and copy and pasted. Here is the url if you would like to see it that way: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/dialogue-writing-tips/

The function of dialogue

I’m sure you know what dialogue is – spoken words between two or more characters. What I want to look at here is what purpose the dialogue serves within a story.

Watts writes that all dialogue should accomplish at least one of the following three things:

• Moving the story forwards
• Giving information
• Contributing to characterisation

George agrees that “in the most basic kinds of writing, dialogue serves the interests of moving the story forwards.” She believes, too, that better writing involves dialogue that contributes to characterization, where “what [a character] says and how he says it tell us as much about who he is as do his actions”.

For George, however, really good dialogue goes far beyond this. She suggests that it can:

• Foreshadow events which are to come
• Make these events more vivid when they do arrive
• Give characters, and the relationships between them, life

Both Watts and George agree that dialogue shouldn’t only exist to give the reader information. This sort of speech invariably sounds clunky and unnatural, as characters often end up telling one another things that the reader knows they’d already be aware of. (“Your wife, who you married ten years ago…”)

Making dialogue sound natural?

One of the major struggles which many writers have is writing natural sounding dialogue. Characters often end up sounding stilted, wooden and unreal. George suggest that a good author “gives [dialogue] the look and sound of natural speech even while he knows he cannot make it a reproduction of natural speech.”

Here, George is saying that dialogue should have a certain verisimilitude – it should seem real to the reader, but it shouldn’t have all the umms, errs and false starts of real speech.

Try taping two or more people talking, or reading a verbatim transcript of a live show. You’ll find that the result is almost unintelligible. You don’t want your dialogue to be this true to life, though; unless, as George writes, your character “has a speech impediment, low-wattage brain power, synapses misfiring, or psychological problems, and the dialogue is being used to define his natural limitations.”

To make dialogue seem natural – without boring the reader to tears or making them think that all the characters are blathering idiots – try some of these tips:

• Use contractions (“don’t”, “shouldn’t”, “can’t”) unless a character is very stuffy or speaking in a very formal context.
• Let characters break off sentences, or speak in phrases rather than sentences. (You might think of these as verbless sentences – they’re great for dialogue.)
• Have characters interrupt one another.
• Use the occasional “um” or “er”, if a character is being particularly hesitant.

Giving characters distinct speech patterns

When writing dialogue, it’s important not only to make the words sound natural but to distinguish (and characterize  your characters by the way in which they speak. Graham writes that “dialogue is characteristic of the person speaking it”, and emphasizes that the words a character says must seem “in-character” for the reader to accept them as real. Watts emphasizes that “as your characters have different physical and emotional characteristics, so too should they speak differently.”

Some factors to consider when finding each character’s “voice”, as well as their personality, are:

• What sort of educational background does the character have?
• Where are they from (geographically)?
• How old are they?
• What do they do for a living?

All of these will affect whether your character is terse or long-winded, whether they use technical terms or layman’s ones. They’ll also determine the sort of slang that your characters use (none at all? Out-of-date slang? Offensive slang?)

One area to be cautious about – something which Graham, Watts and George all mention – is the use of dialect. If your character has a very strong regional accent, the reader will quickly get tired (or confused) if you attempt to spell everything out phonetically. As Graham says, “You don’t want your story to grind to a halt while readers work out syllable by syllable just exactly what has been said.” Try using a couple of regional words to give the dialogue the right flavor: a Scottish character, for instance, would use words like “wee” (meaning “small”) and “bonnie”.

Have a wonderful Labor Day!

Calling All Writers: Characters

First, I would like you to clap. I'm staying up to do these, and I should be printing homework instead. Or reading. Or organizing for tomorrow. Oh well. I love my blog more.

Right! That's what we're supposed to be doing!

   Characters. Ahh. Those torturous things that keep us up at night knocking on our heads going, "WHO AM I?", and then we wake up and try to figure it out. Ways to figure it out without (well, maybe) going insane:

1. I made a spreadsheet for one of my novels, and so far, it's working. Divide it into sections, fill it in, and KAPOW! it's all your characters.
2. Character Profiles: These annoy me. I like orderly things and easy to access, and these were neither for me. I don't use them.
3. Locking the info into your brain: Doesn't work. Don't try it.
4. Writing it down, piece by piece: You could try it... But don't.
5. I don't have a number five. You got one? Shoot me an email or comment.

   Characters are important to the story for many reasons. A) They rule the conversation. Without them, there would be none. B) They are the story. C) It's obvious. They are needed. Characters are needed for the story to exist, to work, to not work, and to make it make sense. You don't have characters... Well, that isn't possible. So make some characters, and make them work.

   The biggest thing to remember: Your characters need a motive. What do they want? What do they need in order to live? What makes them do the things they do? Answer these questions before you write a word, or you can figure it out along the way, but I'd go with the first one. 

   Second biggest thing to remember: They need a voice. Who is your character? How do they talk? Are they snarky, funny, rude, ignorant, polite, nice, needy, whiny, annoying, etc. Once you unearth these, you can write some decent dialogue that matches your character. Find trends in how they talk. (Check out Gimme A Call, the character discovers a trend in her speech. It's awesome.)

   In order to have characters who interact well, you need to know their relationships, their history, their secrets, their faults (these make them relatable), their strengths, the things that make them angry and blow up, things that make them melt with love, etc. You need to know every single itty gritty detail. You can figure these out a you go along, I just always forget or they don't match up. Make your character unique with their own voice and style. 

Examples of awesome characters with depth and a voice:

1.Harry Potter: He has a voice, you understand why he does what he does.

2. Grace from Shiver: You get her, her decisions, her love, her trust-issues.

3. Nora from Hush, Hush: One of my favorites, because you understand why she doesn't want Patch, yet she does. Awesome.

4. Katniss from The Hunger Games: Awesome motives, character confliction, decision making - awesome example.

5. Cammie from Gallagher Girls: Motives are clear, reasoning is clear, it all is clear.











Get the idea? Now go write some killer characters.

Calling All Writers! The Newest Feature At Willa's Ramblings

Hello All!

I have a a wonderful announcement to make, and I hope you all are as excited as I am.
This blog, in cae you hadn't noticed, originally started out as a writing blog, but quickly became a book blog, and lost a bit of it's writing aspect. So, to spark the writer in all of us, and help those out there looking for help, I've decided to start a new feature... *drum roll*
Without further ado:

Calling All Writers! 

Now, to explain what will be happening, I've made a list I hope proved helpful.

• I post a Calling All Writers Topic at the beginning of the week (Monday).
• Throughout the week you (my readers) deeply think about the meaning of my post.
• You post a little something on Sunday about the topic, adding your thoughts, opinions, examples of good uses, etc. 
• You post a link back to my blog and if you use my images, you give me credit. (Thank you, very much.)
• You come back and comment of the original post with the link to your post. Then, you check out some blogs and follow other people. Spread the love!
• Got questions? Email me at willasramblings@gmail.com.
• Last thing: Don't spam me. It takes over the inbox, and annoys me.

Since today is Monday, I'll start today! (Check out the post following this)